


CryptidStuck

by EcoFridge



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol abuse mention, Anxiety, Depression, Don’t worry guys the dog is fine, Drinking, Drug Abuse Mention, F/F, F/M, Guns, I had fun writing this, In fair warning, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Nobody in this fic has any goddamn chill and I’m sorry, The original characters in this are for the background and atmosphere, There’s a car chase, There’s some gore, This is an AU, Welcome to my wonderful world of self-projection, all in the face of ever- present danger, also some people die, and what some would describe as chronic wounds, cannon has been taken out back and shot., dave gets a bit drunk at one point, lots of strong language my guy, peace and comfort, science was not meant to be used this way, some cuddles, there’s gonna be mentions of sex, they aren’t self-inserts I promise, weather it be sharp and loud or in the background
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-05-31 19:53:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 37,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15126713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EcoFridge/pseuds/EcoFridge
Summary: “Wit had conquered science.” - Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The SeaJade, a former rocket scientist, and Dave, also a scientist but he studies dead shit, work together and create a machine that was supposed to reveal the mind of her pet dog, but it winds up causing a good chunk of this fictions problems. Run fast for your mother. A whole lot of shit happens, a couple people die, there’s a car chase, some lovely walks through the forest, existential meltdowns, kissing, tears in the fabric of reality, and more~~.  I had loads of fun writing this.Nearly completed





	1. “The Introductory Crisis”

**Author's Note:**

> I dedicate this work to my friend Hal who helped me write this and helped write my summary! 
> 
> In case you didn’t read all the tags, cannon has been taken out back and shot.

“Wit had conquered science.” - Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea

Her electric green eyes opened to see the forest around her, grey and dark. There was pain, everywhere. She’d assess the damage in a moment. Questions fired through her head as she sat up, no idea where she was or what happened. Something must’ve happened to her memory, then. Concussion? ...where was she? She turned her head to look around and pain shot through her neck. Somewhere, she could smell meat rotting into the ground, approximately half a mile away. Hm, had her sense of smell been amplified? The sound of a bird taking off from a branch somewhere let her know that her hearing may have been amplified too.

Ignoring the pain for a bit, she tried to stand. Something was wrong, her feet didn’t feel the same. Lots of things didn’t feel the same, she noticed. Same as what? Same as they did before? What changed? ... What was her name again? Jade. Jade decided she was very thirsty and began to search for water, ignoring her own questions for the moment. They would be answered eventually, but first she needed water. Her legs were shaking, toes dragging through the dead leaves on the ground. The air was very cold, so she pulled her coat closer around her... She didn’t have a coat. What had happened to her coat? She could’ve sworn she had a coat at one point. Oh well. 

She continued walking for a while, looking out for water, or food, or anything, really. A hand went to her stomach, it wasn’t tender or swollen, thankfully, but it felt awful. It didn’t seem like she was bleeding internally, so that was good, but she couldn’t put her finger on why she felt so nauseous. Was it shock? Was she hungry? She needed water, so her feet dragged her forward. It looked like there might be a building up ahead, and upon closer inspection it appeared to be empty. There was something oddly familiar about it, but she didn’t have time to think about why, because she was already collapsing to her knees to hurl. Was that blood? Best not to think about it. 

Shakily, she got up to enter the building. There was a hallway, dark and leading off into the distance that she couldn’t see. Everything was very blurry, she now noticed. The fluorescent lights on the ceiling were mostly out, but some flickered, and while the tile floor was dirty with stains of questionable origin, they reflected back the flickering lights on the ceiling. Didn’t she have glasses? She felt her face gingerly to find a troubling absence of glasses. That would explain why everything was blurry. Continuing down the hall a while, she found a door left thrown open, a dent in a wall where the door handle had been rammed into it. 

Past this door was a room, but everything inside the room was blurry to her eyes, so she felt around at the shapes that seemed like shelves and cabinets for any help. Her hands, relying on instinct and autopilot, led her to a medicine shelf. On the shelf she found a bottle of pills, and judging by the shape and size, they were pain killers of a sort, which she swallowed without hesitation. A blurry sink was spotted next, where she hastily quenched her thirst. Taking a moment to breathe, she looked around. The place seemed a bit like a doctors office, or a lab. Smelled like chemicals and smoke. She went back out to the hall to keep looking for help, and upon feeling shards of glass under her feet, noticed she wasn’t wearing shoes. 

The hall led her to another door, and in there was a small, black box, an old-fashioned television, and just below it a VHS player. The TV was displaying static, casting an eerie pale light around the room, and there was a VHS tape stuck in the player, winding in and out in a broken, jittery fashion. She pushed the tape in the rest of the way and it began to play on the screen. Past the video distortion she could see a pretty lady with long dark hair and round glasses greet the viewer in a chipper manner. The lady went on to give a tour of the lab, the one she was in now. Jade brought her eyes close to the TV to see it better. The woman was wearing a lab coat and, that, was her voice. That was Jade giving a tour of the lab. The lab looked so clean and orderly, Jade looked so clean and orderly. What happened? She didn’t remember this. 

What she had seen of the lab, the one she had just entered after vomiting, so far was all turned over desks and shattered windows, thrown open doors and broken sinks. Nothing like the how the lab looked in the tape. She kneeled in front of the television and gently touched the distorted, cheerful face on the screen. Static shocked her fingers. The Jade on the screen looked so happy, excited and smart. Like she really knew what she was talking about. The Jade watching the screen had what appeared to be blood running down her chin and had no idea what was going on. She was also in a lot of pain. 

It was getting old, a bit annoying even, hearing her own chipper voice over the distorted recording, so she left the room and continued down the hall. There was a red flashing light, an alarm maybe, that had stopped making noise a long while ago, mounted on the wall above a staircase leading down. Down the stairs was another hall, and down this hall was a trail of bloody footsteps. A single, flickering fluorescent light was left with the task of lighting the entire hall, as all the other lights had gone out. Following the trail of footsteps, she was lead into another room. The door here had been half blown off its hinges, and there were black marks, the kind left behind after electric shock, all around the door frame and on the floor and walls, some on the ceiling. 

In this room was the looming figure of a thick metal chair of some sort, and lots of equipment that she couldn’t find the clarity to identify. Her bare toes grazed over some small metal frames, and picking them up revealed them to be her glasses. They were cracked and bent a bit, but still usable. Her shaky hands placed the frames back on her face, and the world came into focus. among the equipment on the floor was the dim glow of a video camera display. She picked up the camera, inspecting its cracked screen, and found it still mostly functional and in fact still running. She stopped the recording and played it back, to when it first began recording. 

The sounds of the lab began to become more clear to her as the pain meds kicked in and the heartbeat in her ears quieted down. There was the flickering hum of the fluorescent ceiling lights, the eerie silence of the building, small crackles and sparks sounding from broken equipment on the floor and in the wires. The cameras footage stuttered to life and she watched herself appear on the display, again. She wasn’t giving a tour this time, though, she was excitedly explaining her next experiment. The audio was fucked up beyond comprehension, sadly, but the footage was fine. The recording panned over to show a large wolf in a cage, which the Jade in the recording was regarding fondly. The audio cleared for a moment, to reveal she was talking about an experiment in which she would be able to listen to the thoughts of her dog. The success of this experiment would confirm many theories about how the brain worked, and inspire many more. 

Jade watched as the Jade on the camera display carefully hooked up the dog to the equipment, and then she herself was hooked up to the equipment by a fellow scientist, one with blond hair. He sat her down in a big metal chair, placing the attachments to her forehead as she instructed him. She looked so calm and collected, yet excited. Her lab coat had a bit of paint on it. Was that paint? The blond man in the recording began the experiment after receiving the OK from Jade. Things went well for a good five seconds. She was given a shot, from a syringe, that went into her neck. Apparently it was DNA from her dog? It was supposed to smooth out the process some how. The Jade in the recording had explained it in detail a little while back, it had made sense then. 

Lights in the recording flickered, a light in the ceiling went out with a pop. The Jade in the recording began to scream something as all the wires sparked. It was all downhill from there. None of this was supposed to happen, she could tell from the way the blond assistant in the recording franticly went over the controls, trying to shut it off. Flashes interrupted the video, obscuring the view. The dog howled and freed itself from the equipment, and the blond assistant made no attempt to stop it. Jade in the recording lurched forward from the chair, the camera was knocked to the floor. Distorted screams and howls sounded from the broken recording. She watched as the girl in the video convulsed violently on the floor, snarling. 

Her feet became claw-like, her lab coat and glasses lost in the fray. The entire experiment had gone horribly, horribly wrong, good god. Smoke and a cracked lens clouded the view from the camera. Jade paused the playback and put down the camera, bringing herself back to reality. Hesitantly, she looked down with her cracked glasses to find her standard feet had been replaced with some mix between human and canine, claws and some fur. She felt her face with shaking hands again to thankfully find it still human, all skin and lips and thankfully, mostly normal nose. Her ears were gone, though, and this discovery made her sick again. Well, more sick than she already was. How could she still hear, then? Trembling fingers found their way up through her hair to find two soft, pointy ears. There they were. 

There was a broken mirror above the sink in that room, and she approached it warily. The odd reflection in the shards of reflective glass revealed bloody fingerprints on her face from where she had touched it, sharp canine teeth in her mouth, and two soft canine ears. Shit. What happened to her? Her fingers weren’t the same either, as her nails ended in sharp claws and the pads of her fingers were much more calloused and dark then they had been before. Blood was drying in her palms and on her fingertips. 

The chair in the room was the same as the one in the recording, this was in fact the very room where things went south. Maybe after the experiment had failed she had run outside and into the neighboring forest and passed out. How long had she been out for? Who’s blood was this? While Jade was staring at her hands she heard the sound of a small gasp and a shuffle of footsteps just outside the door. She quickly shuffled after the sound, looking for the source. There was the blond assistant from the recording, running back down the hall. apparently he had seen her standing silently in the room and panicked. She really was a frightening sight now, wasn’t she.

No matter, she bounded after him, limping a bit and trying to shout something along the lines of “wait come back!”, but it only came out as a strained bark. The sound of her claws clicking against the tile floor echoed off the walls as she quickly gained on him, running a bit on her hands as well as her feet. Without any other plans to stop him running, she tackled him by the waist, bringing him to the floor with a yelp. Turning him from his stomach onto his back, she pinned him down while she tried to stitch some words together. Fear was written all over his red eyes, and he struggled to get out from underneath her. “St, stop,” she managed to choke out, “help me.” her voice was hoarse.

His hand that wasn’t being pinned down to the floor by the wrist was gripping her wrist on his shoulder, and he didn’t let up his grip but he did stop struggling and took a moment to look her in the eyes. She was just as scared as him. “Please get off.” He requested quietly. 

Jade climbed off him and as he sat up she asked, with some strain, “What’s your name?” He blinked, staring at her a moment. There was blood on his lab coat and a wound on his cheek, claw marks. “I think something happened to my memory,” Jade tried to explain to him. 

“Dave.” He said, getting up. After a moment of hesitation he offered a hand to help her up. 

“Dave,” Jade repeated, taking his hand and standing up again on her trembling hind legs. “... we dissected a frog together in middle school!” She announced the retrieved memory with a hoarse voice, just glad she was able to remember /something/. 

“Yeah, we’ve done a lot more than that.” He looked her up and down, assessing her current state of well-being. “What’s the last thing you can remember?” 

Jade thought about this for a moment, she really couldn’t think very clearly with all this pain. “Dissecting a frog in middle school.” She tried to respond. That probably wasn’t really the last thing she could remember, but everything was going foggy. Had she been loosing blood this whole time? 

“Do you remember your name?” He asked, stepping forward to get a closer look at her wounds. 

“Is it,, Jade?” She felt the hall begin to sway around her. 

“Woah, shit,” he caught her as she started to collapse. Everything went dark shortly after that.


	2. But is the Dog Okay?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ugh

Jade was lying on a table in a mostly clean Lab, the best room he could find in what was left of the place. The building was probably still salvageable, maybe. He went through the cabinets for medical supplies, finding disinfectants and bandages for her. Her hair was dark with drying blood in it, and some strands stuck to her sweaty neck. Deep breath, they’d be fine. God he hated the sight of blood. She’d kill him if he shaved her head so he could properly asses the damage there, so he settled for just doing his best to rinse out her hair in the sink and wrap a bandage around her forehead. Gently pressing a cloth to her head revealed there to be no more blood coming anywhere from under her hair, so that was good. He began patching up the rest of her wounds with his best effort. There was a reason he wasn’t in the medical field. He did, however, know someone who was. Maybe he should take her to them.

He turned to wash off his hands in the sink. The sound of a growl and a clatter startled him, and in the mirror he saw her getting up off the floor, hair falling in front of her eyes as she bared her teeth, grey-white ears pointing back against her dark hair. The lights flickered and one went out. “Jade?” He shut off the sink. Her growl rose to an alarming bark, making him jump, the pain from the wound on his cheek surfacing again like a warning. There was a metal tray on the counter and he grabbed it, holding it up like a shield. “Jade?” There was an attempt to keep his voice level, calm, the tremble in his tone was against his will. Claws dragged across the tile as she shuffled towards him. Maybe it was the fact that she was in pain, the disinfectants probably stung, causing her to be animalistic again? Animals might lash out when frightened, without knowing what else to do, and she appeared to be merged with a dog now, so— his train of thought was interrupted when she suddenly lunged forward with a bark, ramming into the metal tray with her claws and knocking him back into the counter. 

There was no hope in fighting her down, he knew that much, so in a wave of panic he snatched another syringe off the shelf, hopefully it was the sedative. She jumped off the floor again and hit him from an angle, throwing them both to the ground and nocking both the tray and the syringe out of his hands. On his back, he quickly grabbed her wrists and held them away from him, having to grip hard to keep her from yanking free. “Jade if you’re in there p-“ she cut him off with a loud snarl. Pressing his lips into a thin line, he took the risk and threw her off him by the wrists so he could grab the syringe. His hands scrambled for it, hardly getting a grip before she was on him again, arm winded back and claws on full display for a strike to the face. The syringe was jammed into her neck before she could hit him, and she fell to the side with a harsh whimper. 

Hobbling away on her hands and knees, she kept one hand to her neck, ripping out the syringe. She made a noise that resembled a sob, before giving in and letting herself pass out on the floor. Deep breaths, he had to manually remind himself, deep breaths. Carefully, he lifted her off the floor and back onto the table, considering using restraints, but for some reason couldn’t bring himself to actually go look for any. Not for Jade, no. She wasn’t an animal, she was Jade. It would probably be for her own good, though, not just for his sake. Shaking his head, he went to look for more pain killers. There were some things he’d never be able to bring himself to do. 

There was a few bottles on a shelf in a room upstairs, he found. This room had a window, and outside he could see it was dark now, and raining. Red and blue flashes of light struck through the windows and moved shadows around the room. Shit. Someone must’ve called 911 at some point, after evacuation. Not that help was bad, it was just that he suddenly didn’t trust anyone with Jade. They might try to experiment on her, or put her in a cage or something, who knows. Maybe she would hurt someone. Maybe he was overreacting. Either way he didn’t need an ambulance, he was just fine driving her to a trusted medical professional on his own. There’s no telling how the doctors would react to rabid scientist/science experiment gone wrong. That was some sci-fi shit right there. The public should stick to believing that sort of thing stayed in novels and shitty television, where it belonged. 

He managed to grab a couple bottles before booking it back downstairs to where he left Jade. His bag was still where he left it, so he threw in the meds and some other things before going back to Jade. Thankfully, she was still there, out cold and limp. The sight hurt, on some level, like how the frightening sight of her staring blankly at her bloody, clawed hands in the dim light of the broken camera hurt. She didn’t deserve this. He gathered her up against his chest and did his best to quietly rush her out the back exit, where the police weren’t. Rain poured down in turbulent waves, washing the pavement and soaking through his coat. His car was just a little ways away, not far at all but still within sight of the flashing red and blue lights. Gently, he set her in the passengers seat and buckled her in, resting her head back in a comfortable position. 

He heard someone yell to grab his attention, coming from the direction of the flashing lights, just as he shut his door and started the car. Pulling out and driving in the opposite direction as quickly as he could, he looked back briefly to see if anyone was following. None yet, thankfully. A quick prayer was sent to whoever was listening that the roads would be clear and he wouldn’t crash in the now torrential rainfall. Firstly, he had to get her to someone he trusted who knew what they were doing. Johns Grandma was an expert in healing, and at this point he didn’t care if it was weird to go to your friends grandma for help. 

Jade stirred gently in the seat next to him, lolling her head to the other side and groaning softly. Now, Dave wasn’t really a religious person, but he sure was doing a lot of praying tonight. Waking with a start, she tugged at the seatbelt in a moment of confused panic, franticly looking around her new surroundings and then yelping at the pain in her neck. “Hey! Shh hey, hey it’s fine, we’re in the car, Jade, we’re fine, listen I don’t want to wreck us so just calm down a second, yeah? Ok, cool,” he was glancing over at her, trying to keep his voice as gentle as possible. Her breathing slowed, smoothing out as she looked at him and got her bearings. The seatbelt was released from her death-grip and she sat back, grimacing as she rubbed her neck. 

“Where are we going?” Her voice was still a bit raspy, like she had a cold. The rain and the easy movement of the car made for a soothing combination, if you weren’t the one driving. 

“To visit Johns grandma, She should know what to do to help.” His eyes stayed steady on the road. “Fingers crossed.” With a small sigh, Jade rested her head against the window and watched the blurry lights pass. Her fingers went to feel where he had put bandages, covering the wound on her arm and the one on the back of her neck, where scientific equipment had been improperly torn away. “There should be a blanket in the back if you want it.” Dave offered, pointing a thumb briefly over his shoulder at the seats piled with bags and things behind them. He was chewing on his bottom lip, which Jade recognized as his nervous tick. It was something he tended to do before an important meeting or before conducting a particularly dangerous experiment. 

It was funny how little memories like that would surface to her, instead of something big like graduation or meeting him for the first time. She couldn’t remember these things but judging from the fact that she was apparently a highly ranked scientist, she surely graduated from somewhere, and there had to be a first time meeting this blond person. If her judgement was intact they must’ve been good friends before the accident, whatever happened to damage her memory. After a short moment of watching him tear up the scabs on his lips with his teeth, she tried reaching back for a blanket, revealing a sharp pain in her arm that she hadn’t noticed before. A few grunts later, she had retrieved a soft navy blue blanket and promptly wrapped it around herself. Every small comfort was absolutely worth it at this point. 

A while of silence passed before she spoke, not looking at him. “So what happened, exactly.” Her voice sounded wounded on a level that was difficult to describe. “I think I got the general idea of what happened from the camera, but I don’t remember any of it actually happening.” A pause, she looked at him while he thought about a good answer. “What got your cheek? it looks bad.” 

“You did.” He sighed, answering her last question curtly, as there was no light way of putting it. 

“Oh.” Her eyes looked guiltily down at the floorboards. There was a half-full bottle of soda down there, which distracted her, and without wondering who it had belonged to last or how long it had been there, she picked it up and took a sip. 

“You were conducting an experiment that was supposed to test your machines ability to translate your dogs thoughts to you.” He started, “you’d been working on it for about a year or so, and I helped with the biology segments.” He rubbed circles into the steering wheel with his thumb, letting himself slip off subject a bit to ease himself. “It was a nice break from studying the stars and working on rockets for you, a chance to look down for a bit and give your dog some attention.” His tone made her worry a bit about her dog that she apparently had. “The experiment went to shit, as you can probably tell.” 

Jade took another long swig of soda, remembering she didn’t really like soda but it was nice to drink for the moment anyway. “...is my dog okay?” She asked quietly, something heavy in her chest. 

Chewing on his lip, he thought about all this for a second. She clearly didn’t remember hurting him, or trying to hurt him, and the Jade he knew would never hurt a fly. These questions were coming from the Jade he knew. So what took over her the moments directly following the failed experiment, when she attacked him and fled the building? And that scene in the medical room? Would it come back? Deep breaths, back to the subject at hand. It was probably best to tell her the dog got out fine, even though he wasn’t sure at all what happened to it after it had left the room. “Yeah, the dog ran out as soon as things got hairy, it should be ok. It’s a smart dog.” 

“I don’t remember my dogs name...” Jade was beginning to sound depressingly troubled. 

“It was Bec.” Maybe if he kept filling in the blanks for her she would begin to get her memory back. 

“Becquerel? Like the Physicist?” She smiled a bit. “That’s a good name.” 

“You chose it.” Was that the first time he’d seen her smile since the accident? 

Eventually they pulled into Johns driveway, and Dave shut off the car with a click, the absence of the humming engine leaving them in silent darkness as the rain pelted against the car. They got out and shut the doors with that satisfying car-door-shutting noise, and after knocking on the front door, waited in the dark rain for an answer. Jade pulled the blanket closer around her and sniffed. Movement was heard inside the house, the kind of noises you’d expect to hear, like the sound of muffled footsteps going heavily down stairs. Then there was a sound you didn’t expect to hear, the muffled sound of someone falling down stairs and hitting the floor with a loud thud. The door opened a few moments later to reveal a disheveled John, with a disgruntled face, rubbing his neck. 

He greeted them in a harsh whisper, eyes squinted and hardly taking them in. “What the hell are you doing here at midnight, Dave?” He glanced in Jades direction. “And Jade?” John was missing his glasses and hadn’t taken note of any odd details yet. 

“You okay dude?” Dave was raising an eyebrow at John while Jade tried to remember who this was. 

John sighed, turning around to find where his glasses had fallen. “Ugh, just, come in, before you collect any more rain to track in.” 

Stepping in with Jade close behind him, Dave began to say “I warned you about those stairs man“ but didn’t finish the full sentence before John whipped around to glare at him. After taking a moment to finish thoroughly glaring at Dave, he went and picked up his glasses off the floor. 

John sighed, “sorry about my crankiness, it’s just that you woke me up right as I was falling asleep and made me tumble down a flight of stair-“ he stopped himself, taken aback a bit as he got his first clear view of them. “Woah what the hell? Jade?” Jade was sitting on the couch now, and looked up at the sound of her name. One soft ear twitched into position, listening. There was a few moments of silence while John got a good look at them, noting Dave’s seared lab coat and the wounds on both of them, as well as Jades new apparatus. “What happened?” 

“Not sure, but there’s a camera back at the lab that explains it pretty well.” Jade spoke softly, rubbing her feet together. 

“Long story.” Dave answered, moving to sit by Jade. “We need some medical help from your grandma, I remember you saying she was an expert at that.” 

“Dave.” John began, not hiding an ounce of expression on his face, “my grandma’s been dead for like twenty years.” 

“I’m sorry, what?” 

“You heard me.” 

Dave blinked. “Nice prank man but we kind of actually need help right now so if you could cut the bullshit that’d be grea-“

“I’m not joking, Dave, why would I joke about my grandma being dead?”

“You do jokes for a living, dude.” 

Johns voice rose a bit as he gestured with exasperation towards the mantel. “Her ashes are in an urn above the fireplace, ya dingus! Have been for twenty years! What sort of joke are you trying to pull here, coming to my house at midnight looking like you’ve just come out of a shitty sci-fi horror episode and asking for medical attention from my dead grandmother??”

Dave’s mouth opened for a second, as if to say something else, and then shut again, taking a second to try and figure out what this meant. He was so sure Johns grandma was alive and fine last time he checked. When was the last time he checked? He sighed, and opened his mouth again to explain himself, but John cut him off by raising a hand. 

“No,” John started, tiredly. “I don’t want to hear it. Just stay there while I make us some tea or something. I’ve got a headache.” With that he walked off to the kitchen, leaving the couple of damp scientist to sit on the couch and think about what they did. General sounds of tea-making came from the kitchen: cabinets opening and closing, cups being set on the counter, tea noises, a few quiet swears, the usual. Jade turned to Dave with another sniff. “So that’s John, and?” 

“He’s your bro, you met him in a bar and became friends before you figured out you were siblings of the same father.” Dave filled in the blanks for her again. 

“Oh.” Jade nodded and looked away. 

John came back a moment later with three cups of tea, setting them down on the coffee table with a huff. “Your both gonna want to stay the night aren’t you?” 

“Yeah probably.” 

“You’re all a bunch of crazy nerds.” Said John, walking up the stairs to make sure the guest room was still prepared. 

“Says the guy with glasses and buck teeth who studies jokes for a living.” Dave called after him. 

Jade took a warm bath, before going to sleep that night. The water and soap stung her wounds and she had to cling to herself tightly to keep her mind from slipping away into the animalistic urges to lash out and loose control. Shutting off the water, she sat and gripped the edge of the tub for a few moments, breathing heavy as her eyes fell in and out of focus, desperately clinging onto sanity, Like whatever she had been fused with was trying to drag her under by her heals. She felt nauseous and wanted so badly to just let go, but at the same time, memories of hurting Dave that she didn’t remember making, motivated her to keep fighting whatever the hell this was back. The water was too hot and she tumbled out of it, onto the bathroom floor with a sob, and stayed there, lying half-propped on an elbow with her head hanging between her shoulders, just trying to hold herself together. It took a few minutes, but it passed, and the pain stopped digging into her so badly, and she turned herself over to lie on her back on the floor to think. 

She thought about things for a while, she had a lot to think about. For some reason, she could always think clearer when lying on the floor. A knock came from the door, Dave’s voice. “Jade? You alright in there?” Came his muffled words though the door. 

She thought about this for a second. Was she alright? Was she really? No, whatever just happened was bad and a bit terrifying and she really didn’t feel okay on most levels. “Yea, yeah I’m fine.” She lied on the floor. “I’ll be out in a bit.” Her voice still sounded broken. 

“..ok.” He was resolving to just take her word for it for now, walking away from the door to go to bed, concern was in his tone. 

Jade wrapped herself in a towel, and without bothering to get dressed, moved from lying on the bathroom floor to lying on the bed in the guest room, much more comfortable. She opened the window to listen to the rain, which lulled her gently to sleep. 

And then the world settled into nothing more than rain, calm, and warmth.


	3. Welcome to Wendy’s May I Take Your Order?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m not doing these

That morning they got ready and headed out, John bidding them good luck and waving them off with quite a bit of helpful as well as convenient supplies. Jade had given up trying to put shoes on her gnarled dog-feet before they left, to her own dismay. Luckily, whatever happened to the calloused corns of her feet had caused them to be much tougher than they were before, darkened and textured differently, and even walking on gravel barefoot wasn’t a problem for her anymore. Pros and cons. She tied her hair back into a messy ponytail and rolled down the windows, smelling the morning world after rain. John had been kind enough to give her money for a new pair of glasses, something she would need to replace her cracked ones. Vision impairment didn’t bother her much anymore either, though, as it felt like all her other senses had been amplified to a point where she didn’t have to rely on sight nearly as much as she used to. 

The car rattled slightly as they headed down the road, and Dave glanced over to see Jade stick her head out of the window a bit, closing her eyes and scrunching up her nose with a smile, letting the wind rush around her face. The image stayed with him as he focused back on the road, Jade was going to be okay. They were going to be okay. There was someone else Dave knew who could help figure things out, although they certainly weren’t a first choice. She was just a state or so over, maybe a two-hour drive, but if she couldn’t help them, chances were no-one could. Dave had no idea exactly what field of science his sisters Mom worked in, only that she was an expert. The longer he thought about it, the more sketchy his plan seemed. It took about fifteen minutes for Jade to finally ask where they were going, but when she did ask, it was a relief because now he had a reason to explain his thoughts to her and see what she thought. 

“Roses Mom?” Jade echoed thoughtfully. “Is rose... your sister?” 

“Yea.”

Jade smiled. “Aha! I remembered! I think I’m getting my memory back, Maybe. “ 

A small huff that might’ve resembled a depressed laugh left his throat. “That’s good.” 

The road stretched on and they past through a small city, where they stopped for food and refreshment. They went through the drive-through to avoid any complications. Soon after, the city slowly dissolved into suburbs, and then back into country. Trees and small mountains slowly enveloped and isolated the road they were on. The two scientists talked, there was a lot to talk about. Topics often included filling in things missing from Jades memory. Her ability to make new memories and remember things from short-term didn’t seem too damaged, thankfully. They talked about what might’ve gone wrong during their experiment, and what they could learn from this. A while of talking helped them realize there was quite a lot they could learn from this, actually. 

The altitude rose and fell as they drove through the mountains, the sun filtered through the trees. A bit of silence followed, and Jade began to feel nauseous again. She made him stop the car, opening her door and tumbling out, falling on her hands and knees to vomit. Dave quickly rushed around the side of the car to help her, but there wasn’t much he could do other than stroke her back and get her water. She was gripping the grass and fallen leaves, breathing heavy. There it was again, the feeling of something else trying to lash out, coming from the same place that made her ears twitch. Her hand trembled a bit as she wiped her mouth with the wet cloth that Dave had handed her. His voice was calming, keeping her above water, above whatever was clawing at her mind, like it was trying to crawl out. 

They sat for a while, as Jade rode this out. As the wave of turbulence in her mind slowly cleared, she began to notice how peaceful her surroundings were. Birds sang in the distance, a breeze passed gently through the trees, stirring a few fallen leaves on the ground. The sun was calmed to an easy, warm light as clouds lazily floated in front of it, and the light was furthermore tamed by the layers of leaves above them. She took a few deep breaths of fresh air, collecting herself and mentally putting everything back into place. Once they had determined she was okay, they got back in the car and continued on their way. Dave was concerned, hoping they would find a way to fix this, because in his perspective she was sick with something that needed to be flushed out. 

A doubt that they would ever be able to “cure” her was growing in him by the minute. A while more of driving and they reached Her lab. Knocking on the door created a metallic, hollow sound, haunting almost. They waited in silence by the door, but nothing happened. Jade found and rang the doorbell, which created an even more haunting sound than the door did. Shortly after, a tall woman of excellent posture and clean-cut appearance opened the door. Her black lips smiled upon seeing their general person, then frowned upon noticing the wounded details. She ushered them quickly inside to ask what had happened to them, poor children. 

“We’re like, halfway through our twenties, mam’.” Dave noted after being called ‘poor children’. 

Well, she was happy to see them, anyway, and told them as much. She then offered them both a drink, which Dave declined but Jade accepted. 

“Thank you, Miss Lalonde.” Jade took a sip of her drink, which was a nice warm tea. The woman seemed to know them pretty well. 

Your welcome, and just Roxy will do, She told Jade with a smile. So what happened to you two anyway, she asked, gesturing to them, and put emphasis on Jades concerning canine apparatus, and the healing scabs in the shape of claw-marks on Dave’s cheek. It was a long story, but Dave did his best to explain. Roxy nodded thoughtfully, adding the occasional “hmm” and “oh my” to let them know she was listening. While her tone might’ve come off as a bit sarcastic or mocking, she was honestly concerned and interested in this story, and didn’t mean to offend in any way. She stirred her drink slowly by moving her wrist in calculated circles, swishing the drink about the glass in a neat little whirlpool. 

By the time they were finishing their story, she had set down her drink to gently hold up Jades hand, inspecting it first, before moving to inspect her ears, the lack of human ears on the side of her face, her odd new feet, and so on. She asked Jade and Dave questions, good questions, like any good scientist would. They spent a few days there, going over research and blueprints that Dave had brought with him. Together they thought of the idea to build another machine that would reverse the effects, severing Jade from the wolf DNA that had been shot through her own coding. Jade went over the blueprints of the original machine that had done this to her many times, and started to find the flaws in the design. She had been frantic and foolish, her old notes full of energy and excitement, so ready to hear her dogs thoughts. 

Jade also went over the new blueprints for the machine supposed to reverse the process, finding herself remembering facts and equations and methods just by going over old work. At first glance the math looked like elvish, then by third glance it was like perfect English to her. She found herself forgetting and remembering the same equation over and over, getting stuck, getting frustrated that she couldn’t remember what math she had learned but could recognize, and after several days of it, at a desk that Miss Lalonde had given her, she broke down. Roxy found her crying onto her papers and promptly comforted her. Meanwhile Dave had been working on what went wrong with her DNA, and the closer he looked the less it all made sense. He was loosing hope fast. 

It was starting to look more and more like a lost cause, and he was starting to just want to go home. Be done with this, take a break. This was never even his idea, doing the experiment that went to hell. He started to question if he had ever even wanted to help conduct the thing. A couple weeks of nonstop study dragged on, and they got no closer to an answer. Dave was so certain that they had to reverse this, while Jade was quietly suggesting that maybe there was a way to just smooth it out, live with the dog parts in a harmonic way, instead of wiping it out entirely. She had a conversation with Dave about this but he hardly listened, instead taking it that she was saying there was no way to cure her. 

Frustrated and hopeless, he left for a walk in the woods. Half of him was taking a walk so he could sort his thoughts out, and the other half was considering just leaving for home. Not that his home was even that good, or homely, as he had been living in a rented apartment to keep away from his old “home” where he had been abused for the first fifteen years of his life. Leaves rustled above him but everything felt grey and cold, it was cloudy that day, drizzling slightly for an hour or so and then just being humid and cloudy for another. Nothing was right, there was no hope, he wanted to go home, and he just wanted Jade back. He wanted to fix her, somehow, undo what had happened to make her different. They were such close friends, but now she hardly remembers meeting him. 

There were crows in the trees, making a ruckus. Or were they ravens? He didn’t care what they were, he found them annoying and started walking faster. Something was wrong, amiss, more wrong than the general wrongness he had been feeling for the past several weeks or so. Something was up. He stopped to look around and found that he couldn’t remember which direction he had come from. Checking his pockets revealed that he had left his phone back at the lab. Shit. He kept walking in hopes that he would figure out where he was. The crows got louder, and the feeling that something was wrong was getting worse. There was a rustle and a cough behind him, and he spun quickly on his heel to meet it. 

“Hey asshole.” Said the man who had been behind him, who happened to also be Dave. 

“What the fuck” Said the dave that we’ve been following for the past several paragraphs. 

The Dave that suddenly happened to be behind the Dave we’ve been following was bleeding heavily from his abdomen, and was holding a binder full of papers and information. “Long story short the mandala effect is real and we found a way to-“ the bleeding dave began, only for our dave to cut him off. 

“I must be loosing my damn mind.” Our dave said. 

“No,” bleeding dave was 900% done with all bullshit, including his own bullshit. Especially his own bullshit. “you listen, you listen for once in your sad life and hear me out. I’ve been through enough shit today and I came here as an absolute last resort so you listen to me.” Our dave said nothing, looking at the bleeding dave in front of him as they held up the binder full of papers. “The mandala effect is a real thing and we found a way to take advantage of it only for that experiment to also go to Hell. The Jade from where I’m from is dead but we learned a lot, hopefully you can use our fuckups to make this universe the one where we don’t screw up so bad while trying to ‘fix’ Jade.” 

“...what?” 

Bleeding dave shoved the binder into our Dave’s chest, “just take the damn research back to Roxy and whatever you do don’t hook Jade up to another machine.” 

“Are you, are you /actually/ like a doomed-future me coming back to warn me or something? The fuck dude?” Our dave took the binder, but hesitantly. “Doesn’t this shit only happen in-“ 

“Shut up.” Bleeding dave was holding a hand to his abdomen and stumbling a bit. “Don’t say anything, just, read through that and don’t do what we did.” 

“Wait the mandala effect is real?” 

“It’s how you thought Johns Grandma was alive, so yeah. Anyway whatever questions you have for me are probably answered well enough in that binder your holding. I’m going to die in peace now.” 

Our dave flipped through the binder a bit, “So you tried to reverse what happened to Jade by finding a universe where the experiment never happened and-“ 

“Yeah.” Bleeding dave sounded more than irritated. Falling down, Bleeding dave then appeared to be dead. 

A moment of sick silence where Dave simply stared at the dead or dying figure on the ground was cut through by the sound of crows again, circling the fresh meat. All of Dave’s nerves were on absolute edge, none of this was right, and a crow or two landed on the corpse that looked far too much like him. He was walking backwards now, unable to look away as the reality of what he was looking at set in, making him more than uneasy. A crow dived down and attacked him, warning him off so they could forage in peace. His backwards walk turned into a sprint for the other direction, trying to leave the sound of the crows far behind him. Worryingly, the sound seemed to be following him, and in a moment of what felt like fear he suddenly realized he was back at his car, but the crows were still there. 

The binder was still in his hands, and he threw the blood-stained thing into the passenger seat, getting in and shutting the door without hesitation. He started the car and drove away quickly, only wanting to forget what he saw. He didn’t know where he was going exactly, as long as it was away from here. He didn’t look back, either. 

Jade had gone looking for dave, as he had been gone for an hour now, and he didn’t exactly leave on good terms. Her feet didn’t drag on the leaves, and she jogged with a decent pace, calling for him. She never got a reply, but instead found Dave lying dead on the ground, surrounded by crows. Her heart dropped through her stomach, and something set off in her head that she didn’t bother to push down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It gets better I swear


	4. The Part Where They Both Absolutely Ruin Themselves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frankenstein, the scientist, is not a good role model, kids.

His limp body lay peacefully sleeping in a pool of blood-stained leaves, pale and unresponsive to her cries. Jade checked his pulse, surveyed his major wounds, most likely caused by explosion impact and debris? She didn’t care about what caused them as much as she cared about the fact that he appeared to be dead. Something in her mind was snapping slowly, like strings on a violin bow snapping one at a time as it is tightened too far. She was yelling at him, ordering him to wake up. He remained motionless. Perhaps if her mind were clearer she would’ve noticed he had no healed-over wound on his cheek, that this wasn’t the dave that had just left the lab an hour ago. But the strings in her mind were snapping, she didn’t have a clear mind, and she wasn’t going to let him stay dead. 

A sick idea came to her and she didn’t stop the urge to act on that impulse. Almost effortlessly, she scooped him up and ran him back towards the lab. For a second something in the back of her head told her she should tell Roxy, and she had to manually stop herself to listen to it. Roxy deserved to know. She continued to run for the lab. Crows were still in the trees, a few were upset that she was running off with the fresh meat. One tried to attack her and she reflexively caught it by its talons. Another idea. Hastily she carried Dave in one arm and held the crow in the other. All the strings had snapped, she didn’t care if her plan was insane, she was going through with it. Once she had reached the doors of the lab, she kicked them down, yelling for Roxy. 

Without waiting for a response, she hurried inside, finding a room with various empty glass tube-chambers. She had never asked what those were for, but now she was using a small one to hold a crow. Jade set Dave’s sickeningly limp corpse on a table and wrapped his abdomen in a cloth, keeping in whatever blood he had left. He would need it. They had a two-hour drive to get through, but Jade planned to shorten it to about an hour or an hour and a half. Roxy came down the stairs with a concerned hustle, asking Jade what was wrong. 

“Dave.” She replied simply over her shoulder, her voice was grave. “He’s..” She was just now noticing her cheeks were wet with tears, making her eyes blurry. How long had she been crying? “He’s,” Her voice broke, the curt dryness that was just now in it cracking like ice above water, whatever had been holding her together during the run to the lab was receding fast, letting her fall into a kind of acceptance that she wasn’t accepting. A few heavy tears collected and fell from her chin. 

Before Jade was able to get the words out, Roxy had hurried over to the table Dave was on and gasped upon seeing him, stepping back a few paces. She shook her head, then stepped forward again to check his pulse in vain. Without noticing the crow, Roxy simply left the room, Jade didn’t know what she did after that. Eventually Roxy would decide that Rose deserved to know and, in a moment of blurriness, would go to the room that Rose used to stay in. Opening the door revealed the room to be empty, and she remembered that it had been empty for quite some time now. Rose had gone off to live with her girlfriend, not too far away but still rather far. She was off writing award-winning novels, living just fine without her. Mom leaned her back against the wall and blinked back tears, before realizing there was no reason to blink back tears and slid down the wall sobbing. 

It’s not like Rose was gone too, She was just a few miles away, so why did it feel like she was missing? Why did it feel like there was a hole where her beloved daughter used to be? But Dave, he was like her son, and he really was gone. Roxy remembered that one time he slipped up and called her Mom, it was funny at the time but it meant something to her on a level she didn’t talk about. But now he was gone. She could just call Rose about it, Rose wasn’t far away, she could even visit. But somehow it felt like Rose was gone too. Loss is a strange and painful thing to deal with. 

Jade had placed Dave in the car now, she didn’t know whose car, it was a car and it worked, and that was all she cared to think about at the moment. The crow in the container went in the back too, making its ruckus. It was a miracle that Jade didn’t crash, with her mind hardly being clear and her feet operating the petals weren’t even human feet anymore. Time felt like it was moving so fast, her heart was racing, tears were clouding her vision, and she was glaring at the road, gripping the steering wheel to stay focused. Then the moment passed, and she realized she was driving at like seventy miles per hour with a corpse and a crow in a car that didn’t even belong to her. What was she doing? She had been driving for about thirty minutes now. 

Pulling over, she had to stop and get out of the car. Really, What was she doing? The air was cool and a breeze moved the grey clouds above her. Nothing was right here, and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t make herself think clearly. What now? Taking a deep breath, she got back in the car and drove to the nearest rest stop. With her long skirt to mostly hide her odd feet, and long sleeves to pull over her hands, she was mostly okay with going in, but her ears and tail remained a problem. Whatever, she didn’t care. She could probably pass it off as cosplay or something. Inside the rest stop was a table, and she sat there to think and cry for a while. Her face was a mess, so she bought a pack of tissues, and the cashier gave her a sympathetic look and called her “sweetheart”. 

Where did she even get this small amount of money from? Jade didn’t remember, she just knew she had some change in her pockets and had used it to buy a pack of tissues. What now? She couldn’t go through with this, but now she had a corpse getting cold in the backseat of the car and an angry crow. What she needed was her friend back, him and Roxy were the only other people who could help her through this. But then it wasn’t just about the fact that she needed him to help her with her condition, no, she could probably get through this on her own, if that’s what it came down to. Loneliness was a last resort though. No she needed him alive because he was her friend and this was too soon, too sudden, and god her mind wasn’t clear at all, maybe she loved him? 

If she loved him wouldn’t she be able to let him go? No, this was all wrong. Nothing was making sense and she was left wiping her face with her sleeves at a table in a rest-stop. In honesty, nobody really has the courage to do what she was planning to with their possible best friend or maybe even romantic partner. She lied her head in her arms on the table and closed her eyes, wishing to stop time and her thoughts and just stop. Just stop everything, pause, figure out what was going on, separate right from wrong, and take a while to figure this out. But no, time pushed her forward, Dave’s corpse was getting colder by the second, the crow was probably chipping away at that glass, and this was her only chance. Now or never. Opening her eyes again, she spotted an apple juice behind the glass door of a store refrigerator. 

She was going to bring him back. A voice was telling her no, she couldn’t do this, she couldn’t do this, this was crazy, but Jade silenced it as she opened the glass doors of the rest-stop and stepped out into the grey light of the quickly-fading day. Back in the car, the crow cawed on, and yeah, it was chipping away at the glass tube. Her time was limited. The drive should just be an hour or so longer, before she arrived. Time-skip to Jade pulling into the empty parking lot of the old lab where we started. The abandoned building stood hauntingly silent in front of the grey sky. Destination reached. Taking Dave’s cold figure in one arm and the crow in the other, she ignored the yellow tape on the door and the signs and let herself right on inside. 

Inside the lab where we began was just as ghastly and ruined as the last time she saw it, only the power had been turned off and it was all a bit dustier. Her claws clicked on the tile floor with rhythm and purpose, the sound echoing down the hall with nothing to challenge it. There was no hum in the walls, no life left here. But that wouldn’t stop her. Her memory tentatively handed her the location of the breaker room, and she took it without breaking focus. Down the flight of stairs, following the trail of well dried blood that no-one had bothered to mop up yet, she found the room where her troubles had began. Everything was as she had left it, even the broken camera was still there. Dave was set carefully on the floor sitting against a wall, and the crow in the glass tube-chamber was set next to him. 

Before turning the power back on, she hauled the metal chair back into an upright position and untangled the wires and equipment. Then she went down to the breaker room to turn everything back on. With reluctance the building coughed itself back to life, the hum in the walls returning. Quickly she walked briskly back to the room where she had left Dave. Heading to the computers, she booted them all back up and forced life into them, if it meant opening them up and doing a hard restart or cleaning them out then so be it. This was where science became mad science, and god help whatever tried to stop her. Her mental strings were broken and she was getting her friend back, weather the universe allowed it or not. 

In the end this really felt like something Rose would do, not Jade. But here we are, watching as she plugs Dave into the chair and goes over all the code again. All the times of going over the old blueprints for this machine helped her know it inside and out, and helped her know just what changes would need to be made to adjust from a dog to a crow. Speaking of the crow, she picked up the glass chamber she had trapped it in and listened to it continue to protest loudly, as it had been protesting loudly since she had snatched it out of the air by its talons. Of course as she was plugging in the crow there was that voice telling her that no, Jade, this is a horrible idea what are you doing, but she wasn’t listening to it.

Eventually, after about thirty or so minutes, (she had a terrible sense of time,) everything was ready. She looked it all over, hesitating. A question, a thesis, formed in her head. Question: Could she use a glitch in a machine to shock life back into a corpse? Full out Frankenstein the bitch back to life? Thesis: If she turned this thing on, it will use the crow's life to revive Dave. -This has yet to be proven. Something in the back of her head told her this was sick, a fucked up idea she was having. She continued to not listen to it. Now or never. While she was going over everything a second time, as she really only had one chance at this, a big white dog trotted in. 

“...Bec?” Jade stared at the dog with bewilderment as it hurried on up to her, tail wagging with the excitement of finally seeing her again. “But... it’s been weeks! How are you still here?” She got on her knees and scratched the dogs fluffy neck, letting it lick her face and greet her. “Please tell me you didn’t like, wait here, for weeks, for me to come back.” The dog barked happily. “Oh my god” Jade hugged Bec, they were a very big dog, and it continued to lick at her hair. “But what did you eat? What did you drink?” She asked bec, knowing her only response would be another bark. They probably got pity from the police that passed through, or any passing strangers. She imagined Bec had been taken somewhere else by the police only for the dog to hurry back to the lab to wait for her. Whatever happened, they were here now, and Jade suddenly felt so much less alone. There is something haunting about driving for over an hour with a corpse in your car. 

After the formalities with Bec were out of the way, Jade went back to the machine, a renewed optimism giving her the guts to inject the crow DNA she had collected into his neck and pull the switch to start the process that would hopefully bring back Dave. As soon as she had flipped it on, however, she fully realized how insane of an idea this was, but it was too late to take it back. The lab shook, wires sparking. Oh fuck what did she do? The crow yelled, beating its wings against the glass. Jade was thinking that perhaps this wouldn’t work, perhaps she had made a huge mistake and would only bring the lab down on top of them, but something willed her to keep flipping the switches and going through with the experiment. Bec ran out of the room again with a fearful bark. 

One moment slowed into a hundred moments as the adrenaline kicked in. A grunt from Dave’s direction captured her attention, and she watched him spasm and scream back to life. This was wrong, what did she do, what did she do, what did she do, what did she do, fuck fuck fuck fuck- he threw himself forward, ripping the equipment from his neck and head like she had, and collapsed onto the floor, convulsing. 

~

Meanwhile the Dave we know, the one with the scar on his cheek, was in a bar, shakily trying to drown out the memories of whatever the fuck just happened to him. But instead of drowning out his memories, he wound up semi-drunkenly explaining everything to his friend Karkat. The bar was noisy with the sounds of merriment and general bar noises, it was busy that day, as it was Saturday afternoon. Nobody but Karkat was listening to Dave’s strange tale. By the state of him, Karkat could tell Dave would need a ride home, so he declined any drinks that had loads of alcohol in them and sticked to something fruity. Dave was just reaching the part of his story about meeting himself in the forest and the binder/folder thing that had been handed to him while the bartender poured him another apple inspired drink. 

Karkat listened patiently, this all really sounded pretty bad, but he was having trouble believing all of it. If it weren’t for the still-healing scar on Dave’s cheek, he might not’ve believed it at all. “Damn dude.” He commented in his trademark mildly raspy voice once Dave had finished. 

He could tell Dave was finished talking because he took a ridiculously long swig after saying “And then I drove here to forget it all, which sums up my befuckened tale of fucking woe.” 

“I’ve got an idea of a smart thing to do next though, instead of trying to drown yourself with apple-flavored mind-rotting juice.” Karkat started, there was sympathy in his aggressive tone. 

Dave set down the drink with that drink-setting noise and attempted eye-contact with Karkat. “Oh and what do you know? You just sit sellin’ shitty movies n’ video games for a living.” 

“Dude.” Karkat looked at him. Dave had clearly been through a lot. “First of all I take my job very seriously, I administer stories of high value to the public at low costs, and second, y-“ 

“No listen,” Dave started, loudly, “I, he, I didn’t even,,, WANT to be a part of this experiment, I just liked spending time with Jade I, I,” 

“Dave,” Karkat tried to calm him down but no, Dave was standing now, voice getting louder. 

“I had to watch him DIE like, that’s gotta be some next-level matrix bullshit like, you don’t get it I’m, you just don’t GET it man,” The bartender looked at him with something that might be a warning. This was a peaceful bar. 

“Dave calm down you’re starting a scene!” Karkat went to grab his shirt to have him sit back down but Dave smacked his hand away and continued, louder, with his face turning red. 

“OH a scene?? You wanna start a scene?? I’ll start a fucking scene I-“ a pause as Dave looked around with a bit of confusion. “You don’t GET it! I’ve been through more shit than y, you, you’ve EVER had to, to,” people were beginning to look over at him. “And it’s not like y, you were, traumatized for the first FIFTEEN y, years of, fuck, did I even get a childhood? Listen I just want a break? Okay?! I just want a fuckinn break ONE fucking break from this t, traumatic shit, and you,” he stumbled back a small moment and held onto the back of the chair, pointing at Karkat. “You’ve never even-“ 

“SIT DOWN DAVE.” Karkat stood too, looking him in the eyes. “sit the FUCK down and LISTEN.” Dave stopped, almost shocked for a moment, before the anger in his eyes returned and he opened his mouth to continue his tangent, but before he could say anything else Karkat jabbed him in the chest with a finger and made unbroken, steady eye contact with him, which Dave was hardly able to return. “I know I haven’t been through what you have but I sure do know what pain is and I’ve got a much clearer head than you’ve got right now so if you’d kindly sit the fuck down and listen before you make a sputtering fool of yourself in front of the whole damn bar, that would be a fan-fucking-tastic decision for both of us.”

Dave sat down. “You, you don’t get it.” He was trying so hard to hide the emotion in his voice, but the drinks had him failing miserably. 

Karkat sat down too. “I know.” This was starting to feel like a bonding moment of some kind, and he had never even been all that close with Dave. “I know I don’t get it but hear me out you insufferable prick.” 

“What could you possibly say to- to,” Dave looked at the counter for help. “Fuck I’m stuttering, “ 

Karkat sighed, turning his chair to sit on it backwards. “So your friend turned into a murder furry, and you saw yourself die. Crazy shit, I get it. But sitting here bitching about it isn’t going to help you or your friend, jackass. the information that some other iteration of you died to deliver, take it back to Roxy and keep going. Get up off your ass and stop making tired excuses, I’ll even help you.” He looked at Dave to see if he was listening. He was. “Hell, let’s go, right now, I’m driving because you’re half drunk, and we’re going back to Roxy to deliver the information and /keep going/. You can do this, Dave, you hot pile of shit in a lab coat, you just need to keep working at it.” 

“I,” Dave blinked, Karkat was right, but admitting that was proving to be a harder task than it would seem. “I never wanted to be a part of anything like this, what-” he moved in his chair, “what if I just wanted to be a normal dude, nothing interesting, just a happy normal guy with a cool job and maybe like a family I don’t know. Paint a white picket fence or something.” 

“Yeah well,” Karkat slid the drink away from Dave’s hands. “You’ve got a friend who needs you so you’d better suck it up and help them.”


	5. Don’t worry guys the dog is fine.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conversation between the dead and the living is full of misunderstandings and silence 
> 
> Drive safe kids.

Somewhere, it was raining. Outside someone’s window, the rain poured gently, washing the world in vibrant colors of bright greens and dark earthy hues. Birds were singing, somewhere. Somewhere, a woman played violin to her girlfriend, while standing elegantly in front of the window, the daylight framing her in a soft silhouette, with the vibrant colors and the rain behind her. She would run the stings of her bow across the strings of her violin and make it sing beautifully using calculated vibrations. Her girlfriend, dressed in dazzling green to match the outside world, was delighted by the music, but would have to interrupt it to notify the violinist that she had an incoming call. The call was from her mother. 

Somewhere, where the world was peaceful and elegant and beautiful, a woman would be informed that her brother was dead, but somewhere, without knowing it, she wouldn’t have one dead brother, but would instead have two living brothers; a brother who was fine and alive, if not half-hammered, and a second identical brother who was now half-crow. It was not raining where the latter brother was, it was drizzling, lightly. There is a difference. The reason it’s been raining so much is because this story takes place during spring, and it tends to rain a lot during spring. The humid drizzle outside fogged up the windows of the lab, where Jade was. 

Jade was panicking, debating weather or not to approach the convulsing figure on the floor to help them, for fear of being attacked. God, what if she had made a mistake so bad that it would’ve been better for him to have stayed dead? A loud scream of a caw sounded from the floor. Deciding to risk it, she fell to her knees beside him and took him by the wrists before he could claw at her, trying to steady him with calm words. She was answered with a violent, thrashing struggle, a kick to the guts, and a scramble to get away from literally everything. He was curled up in the corner of the room now, shaking violently and clutching his knees to his chest, while the muffled, horrifying sound of bones cracking into place within him had him startling and yelping. 

Shit, what had she done to him. Jade tried approaching him again only to be whacked upside the head by a malformed foot, knocking her cold to the floor. The world went dark with a harsh caw. So, basically, this wasn’t a very good idea. She awoke again a while later to a silent lab, the only noises were the buzzing from the walls and wires. The whole room was even more of a disaster than it was when she had first entered it that afternoon. Dave was nowhere to be seen. She got up off the floor slowly, letting the blood-flow return to her head, and stood up tall on her hind legs. The smell of his blood could be traced to somewhere down the hall, and she followed it. The walls hummed and her nails clicked on the tile, the few lights that still worked flickering above her. There was the beginning of a trail of blood going around the corner. 

Turning the corner, she found him, a collapsed mess of black feathers and blood on the floor. He was passed out, but still trembling, like he was cold. She picked him up gently, carful of his new wings and feathered tail, which were damp with blood and hardly had fully-formed feathers yet, and took him to a medical room. Here, in a drawer, she found a thermometer to check his temperature, and upon gently placing it in his ear she found that yeah, he was pretty cold. Not good. Somewhere in the lab there ought to be a heating system of some kind, right? She’d look for something to warm him up after she patched up his major wounds, he was bleeding pretty badly. 

There were some bandages left on the counter, like someone had been using them and forgot to put them away. There was also a cracked syringe on the floor. This must’ve been where Dave had taken her, after she had come back from the woods. He had told her all about what had happened, of course, so she still knew about the things she couldn’t remember, like the emergency services showing up and her attacking him for the second time. She took the bandages and a wet cloth and began assessing the damage, only to realize that she had no idea what she was doing. 

Still, she did her best to clean his wounds and stop the bleeding. She couldn’t noticeably see feathers growing, but every time she turned around he seemed to have more on his wings, tail and skin. A second passed where she was suddenly worried that he was still dead, so she checked his pulse again to find his heart was beating rhythmically but quickly, maybe a bit too fast. Checking his airways, she found he was breathing shallowly but clearly. Gently, she brushed his hair out of his face, and that’s when she finally noticed he didn’t have any scars on his cheek. Odd, but she didn’t pay much mind to it. There were more important things to be focusing on.

While she was cleaning the blood out of his new feathers, he awoke with a start and threw himself off of the operating table she had set him on, smacking onto the floor with a caw. Jade hurried over to help him but he scrambled away from her in a confused jumble of limbs and feathers, tripping up and falling back a few times before getting the hang of properly scrambling backwards and making it successfully to the corner of the room. His breathing was fast and shallow, and strained to some degree. There were dark circles under his eyes and his face was pale. 

“Hey,” Jade kneeled on the floor a small distance away from him, down to eye-level, and spoke softly. “Hey, it’s okay,” Her voice was wavering and things were really not okay. “Nothing’s gonna hurt you.” He looked at her, still breathing fast, almost hyperventilating. Jade had known him for a while now, and if her broken memory served her right, he was always such a chill person. He was so steady-toned, always seemed calm and collected, even right before a very important meeting or a particularly risky experiment. Only on a few rare occasions had she witnessed him having a breakdown, and other than the recent troubles caused by her machine, the very few breakdowns she had seen him have were caused by flashbacks to being abused or things that triggered memories of being abused. She had never seen him like this. 

On every level he looked absolutely terrified, confused, and just overall not okay. You can’t exactly bring someone violently back to life by fusing them with a crow and not expect them to be an absolute mess. She reached a hand out towards him and his fast breathing hitched, pulling a leg closer to his chest. His thighs were still human, if not a bit shorter somehow, but from the knees down it was all different. His calves had shortened, turning more bony closer to the ankle, and god knows exactly what had happened to his ankles and feet. They definitely weren’t human, though, and by the time you got to his toes it was pretty much 100% avian, with black talons and four long toes, one facing backwards. The length of bone between his ankle and toes had elongated, to the point where his legs appeared to have two joints instead of one before reaching the feet, designed so he would have to walk on his toes as birds do. Jade was also having to walk on her toes, as dogs do. 

Dave looked like he might throw up or pass out, or maybe do both. Without warning, he doubled over and hurled right there, in the corner. A few moments later he weakly scooted away from the spot on the floor where he had thrown up. “... stay there, I’ll get you some water.” Jade said softly before getting up to pour him a plastic cup of water from the sink. Good lord he looked terrible. By the time she had returned he was laying on the floor, still shaking like he was freezing to death, curled up in a ball. She set the cup of water close to him on the floor and went to find him a blanket. There weren’t really any blankets in the lab, it’d be a bit surprising if there were, but there were some sheets for the operating tables and she layered up a few of those to give to him. 

By the time she got back he had moved again, to the other corner of the room furthest from the door, and the cup of water she had given him was empty. He also appeared to have passed out there. Gingerly, Jade picked him up again and set him back on the table, where she could continue cleaning out his wings and feathers. It wasn’t exactly pretty, his back looked pretty bad and occasionally she could hear the muffled sound of bones still snapping into place. Literally none of this makes sense if you think about it too hard so shh just go with it. 

She wondered how upset he would be with her once he got his general bravado back. It wasn’t really even a matter of weather or not he would be upset, it was just a matter of /how/ upset. Looking at him, she felt guilty, to say the least. She put the layered sheets over him like a blanket and began thinking of what to do next while she continued cleaning up and straitening out his new feathers. Food would be great, he would probably be hungry, and she was famished herself. Roxy should know that Dave was alive again, but it would be very hard to tell her. Still, she deserved to know her biological son was alive, even if he was part crow now. Jade was beginning to wonder if the guilt she felt was regret or not. 

Going back to Roxy after grabbing food seemed like a good idea, and she didn’t see any use in sticking around here for much longer. ...Hold on, where was Bec? Jade stepped out into the hall and called for him. No response. She called louder, beginning to walk down the hall, and from a distance she could hear the jingle of her dogs collar as it ran in the direction of her call. When Bec had run around the corner and up to greet her, she had been hit with a subtle wave of relief, kneeling down to scratch behind her dogs ears in greeting and let them lick her face. 

Her stomach growled. Food would be a good decision for what to do next. Wrapping him up loosely in the layered sheets, she carried Dave back out to the car, with Bec trotting close behind her. He was set gently in the passenger seat, minding his new wings and tail. They drove to the nearest restaurant, a taco place downtown. By the time they got there Dave was still asleep, so Jade left Bec in the car to look out for him, with the car windows left rolled down just a bit. While she was inside the restaurant, a bark from Bec woke Dave up with a frantic start. 

For Dave, everything was fuzzy; the noises, the light of the sunset outside, the people, his thoughts, everything. The feeling of suddenly not being dead anymore and having two extra limbs on your back is already strange enough as it is, but now he was also dealing with the after-effects of the Machine and having his mind melded with a crow brain. His breathing picked up, shallow and fast again, and he had no memory of how he had gotten into this car. He had no memory of anything right now. Another greeting bark from Bec in the backseat startled him and he franticly opened the car door to stumble out onto the pavement below. The filtered golden light from the sunset was still blinding to his unadjusted eyes. 

Getting up slowly, he saw there was the figure of a person not far from where he was, and he stumbled towards them for help. His voice came out rough and warbled when he tried to ask for help, more an odd caw than anything. The person he was shambling towards, who’s name just so happened to be Taylor, stepped back when he stepped forward, thinking that was some very impressive spooky makeup he had going on there, like wow, it looked so real! It was a bit frightening. Dave, pale with dark circles around his eyes, tried asking again for help, a bit more successful in getting the word out this time, but it still sounded terribly rough and warbled. Taylor began shuffling away, a bit unnerved, walking backwards. 

When they had begun stepping away, Dave tried to say “wait!” While reaching for them, but his exclamation got lost in a violent caw, and his ‘reaching for them’ was more of a frantic grab at their shirt. Taylor yelped in surprise, jerking away and moving back from Dave a bit faster. Without common sense or a memory of how people work to help guide his frantic decisions, Dave didn’t realize how badly he was frightening this poor person, and continued after them in a desperate pursuit of help. Taylor began trying to warn him off with simple phrases like “stay back!” And “don’t touch me!” Which didn’t get very far on Dave, and after running away a good distance from the shambling crow-man, they called the police. 

Meanwhile, Jade was innocently waiting for her order of food, unaware of what was going on outside. A few minutes passed, about three or four minutes, before she got her order and headed back outside. However, when she went back to the car she realized the door was open and Dave was gone, with Bec barking, trying to get a message to her, and that’s when she heard the ruckus just a little ways down the street. Looking over, she found Dave, disoriented and and in a dazed panic while a bunch of people were looking and pointing at him. Shit. Then she noticed the Police show up, stepping out of their cars and pointing guns at Dave while ordering him to put his hands above his head. SHIT. Without explaining herself to the crowd, she ran up and swept Dave off his feet, startling him greatly, even more startled than he already was by all the chaos and unwanted attention, and carried him bridal-style back to the car at a very hurried pace. 

The police were shouting at her, but she ignored them, setting a very troubled Dave, who was brokenly trying to order her to set him down, into the passenger seat, shutting the door and jumping into the drivers seat with a huff. The police were getting in their cars too, ready to pursue her. “Fuck.” Was all Jade had to say on the situation, before smashing the pedal and skedaddling out of there as quickly as the car would let her go. Speeding down the road, she ignored street signs and lights in her hurry to escape the law, just barely evading collisions with other cars. The flashing red and blue lights were close behind her. 

While she was driving, Dave took this moment to hurl again, mostly blood, just, in the car. On the floor. It was everywhere, and god the /smell/. Fan-fucking-tastic godDAMMIT. Jade held her breath and rolled down the windows a bit more. Hopefully Dave wouldn’t die of internal bleeding before she got them to safety. They took a sharp turn, throwing him against the car door with a caw. Bec really wasn’t helping either by making all that noise and trying to climb all over the car. The sirens where terribly close behind her, which was very worrying, but hey, at least she, uh, at least she, hm. It was a bit hard to look on the bright side of things in this situation. Next to her, she could hear Dave sob “//What the fuck is going on??//” in the most depressingly broken voice she had ever heard. 

Some Police cars had already blocked the road up ahead of her, and those sirens behind her weren’t getting any more distant. “Oh, hell.” Jade sighed, before turning sharply and driving through someone’s lawn, crashing through a couple fences before smashing out the other side and back onto a different road. With no idea where she was going or what direction Roxy’s lab was in, she sped on forward, looking back to see the Police hadn’t followed her through the lawns, but were still in hot pursuit of her. Progress, they weren’t right directly behind her anymore. She took a few sharp turns onto obscure-looking roads surrounded by trees, driving fast on dirt roads and finding as much cover as she could. 

When she had gotten to the point where she could no longer hear or see the police behind her, she pulled over. “You okay?” Jade said before stopping to really look at him. He looked so shaken, an absolute wreck of a person, like approximately four or five tornadoes had just moved into his mind and sat down for tea, then run back out without cleaning up after themselves, leaving every single shelf blown off the walls, and had almost entirely removed the ceiling.

He repeated his earlier question in a similarly distraught voice: “What the fuck is going on??”


	6. I Changed the Title of This One Like Six Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It should be known that I have no fucking clue what I’m doing.

Karkat had driven Dave back to Roxy, and god, was she surprised. She had been so sure of what she saw, that Dave was dead, but then suddenly there he was, just a bit high from some drinks and holding a book full of information from an alternate timeline. It took some time to explain, but once Mom got the full picture she realized that Jade had run off with the corpse of his alternate self, and there was no telling where she went. She suggested they ought to go looking for Jade, as soon as Dave was good and sober. 

“I think you should speak for yourself.” Dave said in reply, gesturing to the drink in Roxy’s hand. This earned him an elbow to the ribs from Karkat. 

A good long distance away, Jade was cleaning out blood-vomit from her car at a local car wash that also had service for the inside of your car while Bird-Dave was getting his bearings. While she was doing this, they tried for conversation. Jade explained what had happened to him, where she had found him, what she did, and so on, and Dave simply sat in troubled silence while giving Bec attention. “What’s the last thing you remember?” Jade finally got around to asking. 

“You know, I” he looked at her for a while, trying to figure out how to put this into words. “I don’t remember much, but like,” he wasn’t able to keep the eye contact. “I don’t think I’m in the right timeline?” That suddenly sounded so dumb a second after he’d said it and he cringed. 

“What do you mean?” Jade wrung out the towel into the bucket. 

What was he even supposed to say here? “God, I don’t know.” His voice sounded so rough still, still warbled and broken. “I can hardly remember middle-school.” 

“Well,” Jade spoke softly, scrubbing out the last of the blood from the floor of the car, “That does seem to be a symptom of using the Machine. The other symptoms seem to be temporary nausea, vomiting blood, hoarse voice,” 

“Yeah, okay, you don’t need to go down the whole list.” He coughed. 

“My point is, if your experience is anything like mine, you’ll get over these symptoms in a couple weeks. ... but coping with being half-animal is a different story. I’m still trying to smooth it out, but I think I’ve definitely gotten better at controlling the random impulsive urges.” 

“You sure about that?” He raised an eyebrow. “You saw a dead body and your first instinct was to throw it in the same machine that fucked you up, and look where we are now.” 

“...I’m, going to wash my hands.” Jade said before turning and walking off with the bucket and towel. 

Dave sighed, leaning his head back and resting an arm over his eyes. None of this felt right. He shouldn’t be here, but he couldn’t remember why. Bec lied down on the seat next to him and nuzzled him gently before curling up into a ball. He sat there with the dog for a while, just letting everything rest for a moment while they waited for Jade to get back. When she did return, she pulled the tacos out of the back and handed one to Dave. “Thanks.” He said, unwrapping it. There was a pause while they sat and ate with half of the car doors open. “Jade,” he got her attention, “I-“ he was about to say something, but thought better of it and said something else. “I’m pretty sure I’m not from this timeline, I remember you were dead.” How in the hell was that any better than what he was going to say before. 

“—What?” Jade still had half a taco in her mouth. 

“Yeah I,” his wings shuffled into a more comfortable position behind him, “I don’t know, man, maybe once I get my memory back.” His voice sounded like it had been run through a living room fan and the dryer a couple times each. So no, this isn’t the sexy kind of Rough Voice. 

“Well,” Jade was trying to make sense of all this, “It’s a slow process to getting your memory back, and I had a lot of help from you, before I started remembering things on my own. I still have trouble with it, actually.” 

“ah.” He took another bite of food. 

“But if you’re from another timeline, then..” the pieces were clicking, but not in the right order. “How?” 

“No idea. It probably has something to do with the mandala effect.” He admitted. 

“Hmm.” She then finished her second taco and hopped out to climb back into the drivers seat. “You can ride shotgun again, it’s clean now.” 

Dave nodded, then hopped out of the back seat to settle back into the passengers seat. “Sorry about that, the uh, blood, by the way.” 

“Hey, it’s alright. I suffered very similar symptoms so I understand.” Jade gave him a small smile, though her eyes were more sad than they were reassuring, before starting up the car. 

~

Roxy had driven with Dave and Karkat through town, and through the neighboring town, but they hadn’t found Jade. There was no answer from her cellphone because it had been left at Roxy’s lab before she‘d left. Dave rested his face in his hands and sighed deeply into his palms. They were now sitting at a local diner, all three of them, while the TV played the local news in the background. Karkat gave Dave reassuring pat on the back, they would find her. Perhaps they should order some food while they were here, and Roxy suggested this to them. Karkat thought that was a good idea, but Dave claimed he wasn’t hungry. 

“Common, dude, you need to eat something.” Karkat poked him in the shoulder. “You haven’t eaten since we left the bar.” 

Dave groaned. 

“Self care first, then moping. Eat a fucking sandwich before your stomach digests itself in a final act of hopeless protest.” Karkat patted him on the back again. 

Roxy offered to go up and order for the three of them, and Karkat told her that was another good idea. While she was ordering, he watched the news, continuing to absentmindedly rub Dave’s hunched back. Another sigh. They’d been out searching for a while, and by this time of day they were both a bit tired. Keeping his eyes on the TV, Karkat rested his head on Dave’s shoulder. They sat like this for a while, and it was nice, almost. Around the diner were just a few people, it certainly wasn’t busy, this was hardly the most popular diner in town. The booth they were sitting in was made of leather, and the table was probably fake wood. Why would wood even need to be fake? Dave stared out the window, watching the headlights of the passing cars move from one corner of his vision to the other. The presence of Karkat resting his head on his shoulder was honestly pretty comforting, to say the least. For a moment, enough time to take several deep breaths and let them go, the world was calm. 

“...Dude.” Karkat sat up, staring at the TV with his eyebrows knitted together. “Is that, Jade?” He said. 

Dave sat up too. “What? Where.” 

“Look.” Karkat pointed at the TV in the corner of the room. The news was displaying a story on a ‘rambunctious crow-man’ and was showing a short clip of footage that was probably taken on a mobile phone. The shaky footage was of a dark-haired woman with dog ears scooping up the crow-man and running him back to a car. The police also appeared to be there. 

“Oh what the hell?” Dave commented. “Who’s that?” 

The story on them ended and the news moved onto other things. Karkat turned to Dave, “Wasn’t that guy wearing your ridiculous ‘ironic’ science-pun shirt?” 

“How the fuck are you able to recognize one of my shirts that I wore like once on a blurry clip of footage that was shown for like ten seconds-“ 

“Answer the fucking question Dave.” 

“Y, Yeah I think that was my shirt but wh-“ a concept dawned on Dave during this moment, stopping any and all other trains of thought he might’ve been having. “Oh hell no. No way.” 

“Do you think that’s-“

“It better fucking not be.” He interrupted Karkat. The concept that neither of them were daring to talk about was, of course, the idea that Jade had perhaps taken the dead Dave and revived him using the Machine. This was exactly what had happened but neither of them wanted it to be true. 

This is when Roxy finally returned to their table with the tray of food, grabbing a large burger and unwrapping it for herself. 

“Thanks, Roxy.” Karkat took the two sandwiches and handed one to Dave, who reluctantly accepted it. “You know you didn’t have to wait by the counter for the food-“ 

Roxy told him that she knew. She also informed them that she had seen the news, too, and that she could hear their conversation from all the way across the diner. 

“Oh.” Karkat said, just as loud as ever. 

Roxy smiled, and suggested that they head back to the lab to pack some essentials before going hunting for Jade again. This could be a rather long road trip, depending on how far away the police had chased them. 

~

Jade and Bird-Dave had been driving for quite a while now, trying to figure out how to get back to Roxy’s lab now that they were pretty much lost without a road map. Last night, they had been driving till Dave had fallen asleep with his head rested against the window, and soon after Jade had parked the car in the corner of a parking lot to sleep too. The next day had been spent just driving, slowly further and further from anything they and their fried memories could recognize. While they drove they talked a bit, but there was a lot of silence. He didn’t like it, but during this silence Dave was confronted with a lot of rough thoughts to work through, and he didn’t speak up at all about most of them. Instead he just sat quietly, letting his troubling thoughts stew around in his mind, head rested against the glass, watching the trees and power lines pass them by. They were in the mountains now, hopefully going in the right direction, to Roxy’s lab. 

Jade had pulled over by one of those stops where you can pull over and stop to enjoy the view. The sun was close to setting now, and the sky was clear but splotched with clouds that gave texture to the sky and complimented the colors of the setting sun. Here, they got out of the car to stretch their limbs and watch the giant ball of blazing gas disappear behind the horizon. Stepping out onto the grassy gravel below, she stretched her legs and back, admiring the view in front of them. Dave was stretching out his wings, cars weren’t made for people with those, and taking deep breaths of fresh air. Some color had returned to his face by this point, plus his wings and tail were pretty much fully feathered. 

“Do you think you could fly with them?” Jade asked, watching him try to reach behind himself to rub the joints just below his shoulder blades where his wings connected to his back. 

“Well, maybe. Not sure if I’d want to risk it though.” He looked at her, resting his arms back at his sides. 

“It shouldn’t be as hard as it seems, if your mind was melded a bit with a crows then you should be able to lean on instinct for most of it.” 

“Yeah, I’m,” he looked at the grass. “I’m not really too thrilled to be part crow in the first place.” He decided that maybe this was the part where he told her from his very broken memory that he wasn’t her Dave and that there was another Dave that hadn’t died, and that reviving him was pointless and it would’ve been better for him to have stayed dead. It still sounded like he had a cold, though, and while he was trying to get the point across to her as gently as he could, he was finding it much harder to find the words than it usually was. Usually, he always had just the right words, it was one of the things he was good at, but now his brain was damaged and the words just weren’t coming. 

The whole monologue started with a hesitant “Listen, Jade,” and ended with a broken “So it would be best if you left me to die again and went back to the others.” And through it all Jade simply listened to him and let him speak. After he was done trying to put words together with a malfunctioning mind, there was a pause where Jade simply stood there, taking it all in. So that was why he had no scars on his cheek. 

Before he could turn and walk away she stopped him with a gentle “No.” She shook her head and closed her eyes, before walking up to him briskly and hugging him. “No you’re still Dave and you still-“ She hid her face in the feathers around his neck. “I’m sorry.” There was so much weight in her voice, and the mixed sadness could roughly be translated to guilt, regret, and denial. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve— I’m Sorry I did this to you. I’m sorry about everything and apologies don’t make up for it in the slightest but I put you through all this and I’m sorry, I-” She felt him hug her back with a sigh, rubbing her back. Sniffing back tears, she continued, “But your alive now and it’s my fault so I’m gonna do everything I can to make up for it. I’m, I’m gonna make sure we get out of this alright and, you, you still matter. Okay? If there’s two Dave’s now you’re both still Dave and you both still matter and I’m not letting you sulk off to die in a hole.” She was almost certain this wasn’t the right thing to say but it was all she could think of, and she meant it. 

They stood there for a few long moments, with the setting sun behind them, just holding on to the other, while Jade began to cry. She really hadn’t meant for any of this to happen, all her intentions were pure, she had really only wanted to be able to hear what her dog was thinking. So do the means justify the ends, or do the ends justify the means? Either way Jade had majorly fucked up somehow and now she was determined to make it better. They were in this shit-show together now.


	7. This Fic Was Originally Only Supposed to be Three Parts Long.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And it was written during a time of bitterness.

The Lab was often rather quiet, save for the constant sound of rushing water under the floor of her house, the mews of cats in some rooms of the lab, and the steady, ever-present hum in the walls. Sometimes, screens would quietly just go black without warning or reason, and Mom would have to step away from them for a bit before they came back on. Without Rose living with her anymore, it was often quite lonely, and if it weren’t for the cats or the gentle, constant white noise of the lab, the loneliness might be unbearable. Roxy had enjoyed the company of Jade and Dave, and the fairly new presence Karkat never failed to be interesting nor somewhat amusing. 

Now they were only here to pack some essentials before leaving to continue their search for Jade, their “essentials” included a gun for herself, an axe for Karkat, and just a knife for Dave. Just in case. Dave didn’t really like guns very much and Karkat had never learned to shoot properly, so they had both declined her other offers. “Wow, man,” Dave looked at Karkat, “all you need is a hat and a beard and you’ve nailed the lumberjack look. Like you’ve got the rolled-up plaid sleeves and everything.” 

Karkat smiled at Dave, resting his axe on one shoulder. “Asshole.” He said, almost endearingly. Roxy laughed lightly, almost a giggle, before ushering them towards the car. While she tried not to mother them too much, it was hard to not see them like children she was to look after, as they were pretty much the same age as her daughter. However, her daughter was like well into her twenties, but she would still always be her beloved daughter. They all loaded into the car, with a bit of banter to lighten their spirits, and headed off. 

~

At some point, Jade would need to stop for gas, but there was a problem. They were all out of money. They were going to need food and water, too, but again, no money. And they couldn’t exactly just find a job somewhere or find someone who needed help moving furniture or something, given their appearances and whatnot. Going back to Roxy’s lab would be a sound plan if it weren’t for the fact that Bird-Dave wasn’t all to thrilled to meet with himself again, and also the fact that they were dead lost in the middle of fuck-knows-where Mountain Land. They continued driving, hoping for sight of some kind of shop maybe, most preferably one that sold roadmaps. But their journey led them only deeper into the forest-ridden hills, and if they were to turn back now, they’d run out of gas before they even got close to getting back to where they were before they had decided to drive into the mountains. 

Time went on and eventually the car completely ran out of gas, forcing them to pull over and get out. Jade let Bec out of the backseat and opened up the trunk to search through it, finding a gun and some water bottles but for some reason no emergency gas reserves of any kind. She slung the gun over her shoulder and handed the water bottles to Dave, who carried them in a satchel. “Into the woods then? To live like mountain men until we find civilization once more?” Jade said, looking at him as they stood on the side of the road, looking out into the forest. 

“I guess, like unless you know of anywhere else to go.” He adjusted the strap on his shoulder. 

“Off we go then!” Jade pointed ahead and marched forward, trying to stay as upbeat about this whole shitty situation as possible. Not really any use in being all upset about it, high spirits and optimism would be much more useful here. The sky above them was grey, and as the wind blew through the trees it began to rain. Together they set off, with Bec trotting merrily along with them, deep into the woods in search of anything really, both of them barefoot, as surely there were no shoes tailored to fit the likes of their feet. Besides, they didn’t really need shoes anymore anyway. Rain stirred up mud, squishing softly between their toes, and the ground was covered in greenery and clovers. 

The rain picked up a bit and it began to thunder, making them a bit nervous, but not nervous enough to slow them down. The thunder rolled across the clouds in magnificent waves, starting in one corner of the sky and striking its way across the heavenly expanse to the other side. Jade thought it was amazing, but Dave was mostly concerned about the dangers of it. Bec was a bit frightened by the loud, booming sounds in the sky, but some calming words from Jade seemed to settle him down and keep him going, even though every flash sent him running back to her with a whine. On foot they walked for approximately thirty minutes, encountering only squirrels and an occasional stream of water. Jades stomach growled. “You hungry?” She asked Dave, ducking under a branch. 

“Oh no don’t worry about it I’m stuffed as a roasted chicken on thanksgiving prepared fresh by a psychotic grandmother with a fetish for over-stuffed poultry.” He spoke quickly as he marched forward, not bothering to move the wet hair from his eyes. 

Jade raised an eyebrow at him until he answered her sincerely. 

“Yes Jade I’m fucking starving but like what can you do.” 

She pulled the gun off her shoulder and examined it closer while they walked. “I can shoot something down and cook it for us, if you don’t mind eating squirrel or deer.” 

“Have you ever even properly gone hunting?” The rain muffled their footsteps in the leaves and softened the ground beneath them.

“Yeah, my grandpa had Bec and I go hunting with him a few times when I was young, and I don’t really have any good memories that I can recall from it. But I think I can remember what to do. And I also took up marksmanship as a hobby, mostly because my Pa was worried about my safety in the place that we lived.” She was wiping raindrops off the barrel and checking all the moving parts of the gun to see how functional it was. 

“Oh, well, how well can you shoot?” He moved his wet bangs out of his eyes. 

Without hesitation she quickly loaded the gun, aimed, and immediately shot a squirrel off a branch that was a good seventeen or more yards away. “I think I’m alright with it”. She said casually, as Bec hurried off to find where the dead Squirrel had landed.

“...huh.” Said Dave. 

With under half a minute of sniffing, Bec had found the squirrel and brought it proudly back to Jade, who had Dave set it gently in his bag. There was no way they’d start a fire to cook it in this rain, but she’d never kill an innocent animal just to show off. They’d cook it later, when the rain stopped. Continuing their walk through the woods, they stepped out onto a narrow, winding dirt path that cut roughly through the forestry. Jade knelt down, examining a pair of faded tire tracks that were almost washed away. Bec immediately began sniffing, and with a final punctuated sniff it picked its head up and began following the path to the left. Both of them agreed to follow Bec, who seemed to be very certain about where it was going. The path took them downhill for a while, down to a small creek. The stones at the bottom of the creek had been smoothed into an easy, shallowly submerged bridge for the path to continue on smoothly through the creek and back uphill. The dog splashed playfully through the stream, before suddenly stopping, getting distracted by something in the water, forgetting it and then continuing forward up the narrow dirt road. 

Rain tapped an erratic but soothing rhythm through the leaves above them, covering the world in a dusting of droplets and puddles. They came across a sign on the side of the overgrown road that was pointing forward, which was encouraging to them. There must be something not too far ahead. Another few minutes of walking took them to a place where the faded dirt path turned into a faded gravel path, with grass growing up between the little stones. The path opened up into a small clearing, and in this clearing were about six or so small cabins and a ring of stones with old and decayed firewood in it. Around the ring of stones were four logs for sitting on. Apparently, they had come across an abandoned camp site. 

They could camp out here for a while, cook up some food, rest their feet, before continuing onward. Jade and Dave stepped up into the miniature porch in front of the first small cabin, with Bec following close behind, sheltered from the rain by the overhang of the roof. The dog shook in that way that dogs shake to dry off when they’re wet. Jade took this chance to wipe the droplets off her cloudy glasses on her shirt, which didn’t exactly solve the cloudiness but it did help a bit. Dave tried the doorknob, which proved to be locked and rusted over. “It’s locked.” He informed her, shuffling his wet wings. 

Jades ear twitched, flicking off some small amount of water. “Go see if the other cabins in the other row up the hill are locked too, I’ll check the ones in this row.” 

“We could always just break the lock.” He suggested, adjusting the strap on his shoulder. His voice still sounded a bit rough, and honestly a bit depressed. 

“No breaking and entering,” said Jade, waving a finger at him, “we’ll use that as a last resort if none of these were left unlocked.” 

“It’s not like anyone’s here.” He mumbled over his shoulder as he began walking away towards the other cabins. 

Jade sighed, “We might still want a working lock, depending on how long we stay here.” 

“Fine.” He said a bit loudly, as he was a bit of a distance away now. 

Taking a deep breath of the fresh rainy air, Jade walked off to check the other cabins in her row. A minute or so of checking each one proved them all to be locked, except one. Dave called her over when he found the one that was left unlocked, most likely left that way on accident. Judging by the state of the cabins, with vines growing up the sides and cobwebs in the corners, the camp had probably been left vacant for approximately a little under a year. Stepping inside, Bec ran on through their legs to hurry out of the rain. In here they found there was only one bed left, and it appeared to be the bottom half of a severed bunk bed. On the floor there was evidence of other bunk beds that perhaps were once lined against the walls to be used by campers, but now all that remained was the one lower half of a severed bunk. Why this one bed was left when all the others appeared to have been taken, they didn’t know, and there wasn’t really anyone left to ask. 

In the corner of the cabin, next to the bed, was an old broom. They used this to tidy up the dusty floor and clear away any unwanted cobwebs or dead bugs. Dave sat on the bed and ran a hand through his wet hair, pushing it out of his eyes while Jade tied the curtains that were covering the windows to the side. Bec hopped up onto the bed to curl up into a ball next to him, panting a bit from the long walk. There was no light-switch or electrical of any kind in the cabin, so they would have to keep the windows uncovered for light and open them for fresh air. “This isn’t so bad,” Jade began softly, “in fact I think it’s pretty nice here.” She sat on the bed next to him, rubbing her tired feet and wringing the rainwater out of her hair. They were both breathing just a bit heavy, due to having walked for what was probably three or more hours through the hills and rain without many breaks. 

Dave lied back with his legs still hanging over the edge of the bed. “What now?” Was all he said. Thunder roared, distant and far above them. The sound of rain on the slightly leaky wooden roof of the little cabin was calming. 

“Let’s rest a little while, see if the rain lightens up, and then I’ll see if I can start a fire to cook this squirrel. Maybe I’ll go hunting for more food after that.” She spoke softly, her voice was just a bit deep but it was fluttery and soothing to listen to. 

“Cool.” He said, eyes closed. He was laying horizontally across the bed with the lower half of him hanging over the edge, which couldn’t be good for his back. 

Jade smiled a bit and pushed him with a small “common” till he got up and lied down correctly. Once She’d settled down next to him, Bec hopped back up and lied down between them. They stayed there for a while, listening to the rain. Jade ran her fingers trough Bec’s soft fur, scritching behind their ears. The world was still and gentle, and for a lovely stretch of time they lied there and just enjoyed the softness of it. Jade had almost fallen asleep when she heard her stomach growl, and noticed the rain sounded like it had lightened up. She got up carefully, as Dave had fallen asleep, and went to check outside. Sure enough, the rain had passed on to water some other corner of the earth, leaving the wet world around her a nice vibrant green. Closing the door gently, she went to tell Dave that they could cook up the squirrel and eat now, but seeing him peacefully curled up with Bec made her think twice. 

She’d be lying if she said it wasn’t literally the most adorable thing she’d seen all month, and the guy honestly deserved a break after all they’d been through. So she let him sleep, and went to grab the squirrel out of the bag that he’d left on the floor next to the bed. Back outside, she found the ring of stones that formed an old campfire, and freshened it up with some fallen branches broken into pieces and some leaves to get the fire going. Even though the wood was damp, she’d surely be able to get it going with some luck. Of course then there was the issue of sparking a fire in the first place. Hm. There was a shed, off in the distance, probably used for camp things, and maybe she’d find something useful in there. Metal would be helpful, if she found something like that she could strike it against a rock to make sparks. 

Upon reaching the shed, she was faced with the puzzle of getting it open, what with the lock on the door and all. It was an old and rusty lock, and because she couldn’t seem to find any other way to open the shed, she took a rock and broke the lock. Inside there was a few basic tools, general shed items, the kind of stuff you’d expect to find, and then a rather large knife. The knife had a nice sheath, too, made of leather and designed to hook onto a belt. She took the knife in its sheath back to the unlit campfire and sat down in the damp grass. After unsheathing it, she struck a rock against it, and was able to make a few sparks. The tiny sparks would fall onto the leaves and branches in the circle of stones and immediately die, however. 

It took her several minutes to figure it out, but eventually she started a tiny fire in the crumpled leaves, and then was able to keep it going by feeding it small sticks, and then bigger sticks, and so on. She dragged a small fallen tree out of the woods, it was thin enough to wrap your hands around, and broke it into measured sections so she could feed it to the fire. With that going, she skinned and cooked the squirrel, which had a disappointing amount of actual meat on it. She went to wake up Dave so he could eat what she had cooked and watch the fire to keep it going while she went and hunted down something bigger. 

A couple hours or so later, he was sitting on one of the logs by the fire, feeding it sticks while Bec lied next to him. He looked up to see her come swaggering back out of the woods with a full-sized deer slung over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, her gun held loosely in her left hand. Bec ran up to greet her with a bark and trotted alongside her as she finished walking back to the campfire. Dropping the deer down at Dave’s feet and handing him the knife, she said while breathing a bit heavy, “wanna help me skin this?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned


	8. Whom’st in the Goddamn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Music played a pretty big part in the making of not only this work, but in literally everything I’ve ever written.

Here’s the setting: we’re in a lively bar, filled with an orderly scattering of unpolished tables, populated mostly by men and a few tough-looking women, some having a beer and playing some cards. The lights are low, the air is filled with the noises of talking, glasses clinking, chairs squeaking as they scuff across the floor, and occasional sighs of frustration from those who’d just lost in a game. There’s an array of bottles along the back wall behind the bar, and a couple of bar tenders dressed in plaid and black aprons. One of the bar tenders reaches up and takes a glass from the hanging rack and begins mixing a drink in a showy manner, eliciting a small applause from those watching when she skillfully manages to flip the drink into the glass flawlessly. Along the wall is a menu drawn onto a chalkboard, and various decorations like framed pictures and such to make the place homey. There’s someone playing piano in the corner, with some warm fairy lights in the ceiling above them. There’s also a juke box in the corner next to the piano, but no-one is using it. Outside the windows you can see street lights and the occasional passing car. 

Roxy sits at the polished wood bar and orders some fancy drink that Dave has never heard of, and Karkat, having left his ID at home, orders water. Dave orders his usual fruity glass of liquid confidence and watches a game of darts unfold across the room. This isn’t a very fancy bar, it’s mostly people who look like they could be lumberjacks and a good deal of them seem pretty familiar with each other. They could tell everyone here was pretty familiar with each other because once the bar tender had handed Roxy her drink she immediately asked them if they were from out of town. 

“Yeah, we’ve been driving for a few days now,” said Dave, leaning against the bar, “I don’t think we’ve ever been to this town before.” 

“Hm,” The bar tender, who had the name tag ‘Sally’ on her apron, was mixing another drink. “Just passing through?” 

“Pretty much.” 

“So where y’all headed?” 

“Nowhere in particular,” Dave looked at Karkat for a better answer. How exactly are you supposed to explain that you’re looking for someone specific without it sounding odd? “We don’t really have a destination.” 

“So your either wandering or looking for something then?” Sally seemed to know a good deal more than anyone in the bar, somehow. Not in a creepy way, just in like a wise kind of way. There were laughter lines in the corners of her eyes and grey streaks in her hair. She tossed the drink in the silver shaker and caught it behind her back just for show. It was clear she’d been working here for a long time.

Karkat took a drink of his water and spoke up, “we’re looking for a friend, she’s been missing for a while and needs help.” Oh, ok. 

“Hmm.” Said Sally, pouring the drink through the strainer and then handing it to a customer. “Can I get a name or a bit of description for this missing friend?” 

“Jade Harley,” Karkat answered a bit too loudly over the noise of the bar. “She’s got, uh,” this was the moment he decided to do his best to not add in the wolf details, for many reasons. “Long, dark hair, round glasses, tall cheek bones, bright green eyes, large front teeth, some uh, some dogish attributes to her um personality,” 

Dave looked at him with the kind of look that lets you know you should stop talking. 

“Haven’t seen any posters up for a missing Jade,” Sally rested her elbows on the bar and leaned on it heavily. “Have you contacted the local sheriff about it?” 

“Well, no,” said Karkat, “we don’t really want the police in on this,” 

The barista raised an eyebrow. 

“Uh,” Karkat licked his lip, “we have a good reason why,” 

Roxy leaned forward, cutting Karkat off to smoothly explain to the Barista that their friend Jade had been chased off by the police due to a misunderstanding, and they didn’t want her to get spooked off even further by the police coming after her again. It wasn’t because of anything particularly illegal, they just didn’t want to take any chances. When in doubt, tell half-truths. 

“Hmm.” Sally leaned back from the bar and took another order on a sticky-note from the other bar tender working with her. “Well dear, if your friend is here, this is a small town, and it shouldn’t be too hard to find her if you ask around a bit.” She began mixing another drink. “The people here are pretty friendly, try getting involved in a game and see what you can pick up.” 

“Thanks.” Dave took a long drink from his glass. 

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.” Sally winked at them before turning around to mind her own business again. 

Turning around, Dave found Roxy had already walked over to a table of gentlemen and woman who had apparently just finished a game of spades, and she was asking them if they’d mind dealing her and her friends in. The people at the table leaned over to look behind Roxy at Dave and Karkat across the bar. Dave waved at them in a yes-I’m-friendly way. The gentlemen nodded, beginning to deal them into the next round of spades and Karkat hopped off his chair to join them. 

Now, the three of them had been driving for a few days, following rumors and sightings of “werewolf’s” and “black-winged devils with glowing red eyes”, but they’d never really found someone who’d gotten a clear sighting. Today, at this bar, they got into a conversation with a man who claimed to have seen “A tall woman standing on the hind legs of a wolf, with white ears and a tail to match.” He told them he’d seen her in the forest, when he was out hunting deer. Apparently, the doe he was aiming at got shot down before he’d pulled the trigger, and not long after, he spotted her hoisting the entire deer onto her shoulder, accompanied by a large wolf, and then had walked back into the mist with it. 

“Later,” he told them, setting his beer back on the table to shuffle the cards, “I saw her again, when the fog was thick in the trees and the day was just beginning to expire, but this time she was accompanied by a man with large black wings and bright red eyes, standing on the unmistakable legs of a crow. I have every reason to believe I saw a couple of demons or something that day.” He took another swig of his drink and ran a hand through his beard. “Why am I telling you this again?” 

“Because it’s interesting.” Karkat played a card and ended his turn. “Also what part of the woods were you in when you saw them?” 

The man looked a bit hesitant to tell them, glancing suspiciously between Dave, who hadn’t taken off his reflective sunglasses at all so far in this dimly lit bar, and Karkat, who looked like he hadn’t slept in days and seemed to be stuck speaking at an uncomfortably loud volume. 

Roxy decided to cut in again. You see, she began, they were a small group of independent cryptid hunters, and they had been looking for the very creatures he had just described. Any information he could give them would be greatly appreciated. She slid a Twenty-dollar bill across the table to him and smiled. The man with the beard sighed, picking up the cash and inspecting it, before giving them the best description of where he was that he could.

~

In the few days that Jade and Bird-Dave had spent alone in the woods, they’d both found themselves warming up to the whole shitty situation. The couple of rainy nights could’ve been more awkward due to the presence of only one bed, but instead they had made the best of it and spent the nights tangled together in warmth, comfort, and quiet conversation held under their breath. He’d tuck his head into the space between her chin and collarbone, and after mumbling an exchange of tired secrets, would fall asleep there, feeling safety between her arms and comfort in her warm words. Meanwhile she had found tenderness in his scarred skin and scarred stories, running her fingers through the layer of soft feathers under his neck and helping to straiten them out, along with his memories. 

In this place where they could wrap themselves in each others arms, the world outside became distant and so much less threatening. Outside they could hear wind shuffling the trees and whistling about the small walls surrounding them, but here they felt safe. There was thunder, startling Bec, who’d curl up with them on this bed, far to small for the three of them, and share in their warmth. Every time Dave’s words spilled over and he admitted his darkest thoughts with his face buried in the soft fabric of her shirt, she’d bounce him back by taking apart his words and letting him know where he was wrong, how they could be better, how things were going to be okay and how she was going to be there with him through this. So they lied together, fingers in hair and intertwined muddy feet, nuzzling noses into the warmth and clinging to the fact that the other, at least, was there. 

In the morning when the rain had stopped and the world was left refreshed and singing under the rising sun, they would head out into the refreshed forest, all glistening in its morning dew, and search the area surrounding their camp site, with Bec as their faithful companion and source of optimism. Good dog, best friend. Not far from the camp they had found a steady lake behind the trees, filled with life and flourish. The surface of the water was still and peaceful, rippling gently in the breeze. Along the shore of the lake was an old dock, overgrown with ivy and moss. Harbored in that dock was a single slowly rotting boat, just big enough for two or three people. For the hell of it, the three of them all got in the boat and rowed out across the lake, in search of nothing particular but keeping watch nonetheless. This was all well and fun and good right up until Bec got excited by something he saw in the water or in the distance and accidentally capsized the small boat, tossing them all into the previously still waters. 

The dog was forgiven though as he did his best to help them swim back to the shore of the lake. They crawled back up into the leaf-covered land laughing and coughing, with Dave muttering “goddamnit, Bec” while giving the wet dog a loving pat. In order to dry off, they had to rid themselves of most their clothes, wringing them out and hanging them up on branches near the cabins. Without any shoes to even get wet in the first place, they continued walking and searching the area unfettered, finding a tall hill with a steep drop on one side and a view of the lake they had found. You could see the fog rising from the land below into the sky, collecting into thick clouds of moisture that laced the heavens. While they took a moment to catch their breath and admire the strikingly gorgeous view, Jade once again asked him if he could perhaps fly. 

Now at this point he had had some time to recover and sort himself out, and was feeling a bit better about the situation and himself. At least he didn’t want to die anymore. Nothing like a few days alone in the woods with Jade and her dog to make one better in spirit and mind, as her optimism was contagious. So after a bit of weighing out the worst and best possible outcomes, he decided to go ahead and see if he could actually use the new pair of limbs on his back for something. Dave started by stretching, but not too much as to psych himself out of it, and tested how much wind he could catch under his wings by flapping them. With a good deal of encouragement from Jade, he backed up and sprinted for the steep drop. He deeply regretted his decision immediately after leaping off the side of the mountain. 

He plummeted with a “OH FUCK” that came out as a more of a caw, frantically trying to catch the air under his wings, and almost hit the ground before instinct kicked in and he soared forward. Apparently tail feathers are crucial for balance and direction. The ground fell away beneath him, and in a mix of adrenaline and excitement he wasn’t afraid of the height. He was free. Free as a shit that just came from someone who’s been constipated for eighty days. From the top of the hill he could hear Jade cheering louder than he’d ever heard her, with Bec barking ecstatically along. 

The wind was sharp, a bit cold, and amazing, with the warmth of the sun on his skin and now the speed of the sky under his wings. The misty air whipped against his face and the moisture collected on his eyelashes. Everything in the world below him became small, and in that moment nothing mattered. The entire experience was fucking incredible, to say the least. You could probably write a good song about how celestial the feeling of flying was, with the sun behind you and the sky beneath your second set of feathered arms. He didn’t stay up there for long though, and landed roughly back near the camp, tumbling onto the ground in a mess of joy and feathers. 

~

The night was cold and dark, rain soaked the asphalt roads and poured down the windshield of a silver Chevrolet Cruze, coasting through the forest country at 12:47 AM. Roxy rubbed circles into the steering wheel with her right thumb, breathing slowly while listening to the quiet music coming from the radio. The song was a bit of a sad one, singing soft and long of something lost in some vague memory rendered in the form of poetry. She looked up from the road to briefly glance in her center review mirror, tilting it down to see Dave and Karkat asleep in the back. They were pretty much full grown men, but for some reason they had both decided not to ride shotgun, and also to fall asleep resting against each other, for warmth and support maybe. It was a heartwarming sight, but she couldn’t look at it long because she needed to focus on driving. 

She began to think about her daughter. The call she’d had with Rose to tell her that she was wrong and Dave was still alive hadn’t gone nearly as well as it could’ve, and she hadn’t spoken with her daughter since then. Rose never called anymore, and hadn’t called her in years. That one conversation, and the one held not long before it that was about Dave being mistakenly dead, was the only time she had spoken with her in the past year. Mom tried to recall the last time she’d told her daughter she loved her, and found that she couldn’t remember. This was something that hurt to think about. 

The windshield wipers were at work trying to keep her view of the road as clear as possible, smearing away the rain on the glass. With the back of her hand she cleared the tears from her eyes that were also obscuring her vision. This was a wet and cold kind of night. She glanced back at Dave, resting his head on Karkat’s shoulder. He was the product of a foolish and amorous teen girl and a man who’s name she couldn’t remember. Not raised by her, not known by her till years later when he traced his genes back to her name in a search for a mother that he’d never known growing up. Still, he was like a son to her, and she had decided to look after him like she’d looked after her daughter, even though by the time they met he was twenty-one and he hardly visited. 

It had been a long and difficult few days for those two boys in the passenger seats of her car, and aside from that one night they spent in a motel, they hadn’t slept much at all in a while. She wasn’t going to wake them for anything, and let them rest to the sound of the radio turned down to a soft mumble. There’s something in your head that changes on the day you become a mother, weather you’d asked for it or not. In a way she felt these people who hardly spoke to her anymore were still her responsibility, and even if their faces might as well belong to strangers she could still recognize the little details and traits that she had given to them through the passage of genetic coding. 

She loved them, they were her children, and she was prepared to drain herself away to make them into the best people that they could possibly be. Roxy might not’ve ever been the best mother, but she had tried her best. Maybe she could’ve tried harder, maybe if she just... There was a bottle of alcohol in the back of the car somewhere, she knew there was, there always was, and maybe if there wasn’t always a bottle in the back of her car she could have been a better mother. She took a deep breath, smelling all the different scents that had collected in this car over the years. Some of them she wished she could just wash out, and others she wanted to collect and pour into a candle. 

But all the different scents had mixed into this one specific smell that her car would always have, and she’d gotten so used to it that she could hardly smell them or tell them apart anymore. Another deep breath. In her chest was a certain emptiness, a hole that had collected and grown since the day she was born. Her attempts to fill it with medicine had turned her into somewhat of an addict and were disintegrating her slowly, starting at the back of her mind and crawling forward. Her attempts to fill the hole with love had left her lonely, more broken up than she had been before, and with children that hardly knew her anymore.

Her hands tightened on the steering wheel and she focused her eyes on the road. It was times like this, when her thoughts that she didn’t want invaded her head and made the void in her chest grow bigger, that she would try to drown them out with drinks or by turning up the radio, but she couldn’t turn up the radio for fear of waking up the two in the passenger seats behind her, and she couldn’t drink now because she was driving and had to keep them safe. Behind the clouds she could see the moon, low and pale orange between the silhouettes of trees, glowing softly through the grey cotton sky and the rain. Her thoughts came to a conclusion that night, and god help anything that tried to deny her.


	9. Void Fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spooks to snarks to smuts 
> 
> Big credits to Hal

It was late winter in the video shop that Karkat worked at, and there were several televisions set up against the walls. There were also racks full of movies, video games, merchandise, some dungeons and dragons related items, even a few books. It was basically a nerd store. Sigh. Karkat took pride in it though, and he looked at it all while slouching at the front desk and register. His elbows were up on the counter and he tiredly rested his chin on his palms. It had been a long day. Outside the windows it was dark now, all the TV’s were shut off and the radio was silent, and he should probably close the store in just a few minutes. It was just a bit uncomfortable, in this still silence with the darkness outside, the whole place felt lifeless and vacant. Yet the entire store sat filled to the brim with colorful snapshots of hundreds of various stories waiting to be unraveled. 

He took in a fresh lung full of air and stood up to begin closing the place down for the night. Maybe once he got home he could make some food with the leftovers in the fridge from Saturday and finish watching that long sci-fi movie. It was a good movie, he thought while cashing out the register, it had lots of well-developed characters and romance along with a great plot. He had left off somewhere in the middle right after a pretty tense scene and would like to get back to it. In the reflection of the large, dark glass windows he saw one of the TVs lined against the back wall flicker on without apparent cause or warning. 

He turned around quickly, with some alarm, spotting the TV, which displayed only static. Quirking an eyebrow, he refused to do the dumb thing that everyone in horror movies does, which is to ask ‘hello?’ Loudly for the killer to hear. No, he knew he should be alone in here, no-one had entered or left for the past hour or so, and he had been working alone this evening. To his own disappointment, however, he did in fact shout “hello?” Just to check. The TV flickered, the static forming an odd pattern, almost like a silhouette of a head. A heavily distorted voice came on underneath the static, a woman’s voice, and it sounded urgent. He stepped closer to the TV, looking around for anyone who might’ve turned it on. 

Behind the static a face began to form, black and white and worried. Karkat went to try and turn it off, it was probably just picking up bits of some distant broadcast. The voice shouted, it sort of sounded like she was saying “get out” over and over. He couldn’t tell though, it was too distorted. The face was feminine, with tall cheekbones and dark hair, very similar to how Jade looked. Not that he’d seen Jade very much, they’d only met up a few times for Saturday shenanigans and very occasional hangouts. The expression of the woman’s face on the screen looked very distressed. 

Swallowing a bit hard, he went to turn off the television, pressing the power button, but it seemed to do nothing. He pressed it again, but the static-covered face remained, distorted and yelling about being able to see across a new plane of reality or something. It was getting a bit off-putting. From the static a scream began to flicker together, getting stronger and louder by the second. The face was screaming, too. Above him the lights flickered as the scream grew louder. Karkat stepped back a bit, staring at the screaming TV, heart in his throat.

The shrill sound got clearer as it became louder, rising above the static till it was all he could hear. His panic faltered and he hastily stepped forward to turn the TV to the side and unplug it. Silence took over the room again instantly. The lights in the ceiling immediately stopped flickering as well. He swallowed again, muttering “Jesus Christ” under his breath. Dropping the plug, he turned on his heel to hastily finish closing up the store and drive home. 

In his car, he had the radio playing, keeping him company during the dimly lit drive home through the dark. The broadcast wasn’t of the best quality, which he didn’t mind too much, but under the occasional static he could’ve sworn he could hear the lady’s voice still. Time went on and the sun rose, but never talked about it. It wasn’t something he knew how to talk about without sounding off, and it’s not like the issue ever bothered him again. 

~

Back in the present we open up with Roxy, Karkat, and Dave marching through the woods, following the lead that the man had given them last night at the bar. Mom has a gun slung over her back and an inventory full of almost anything they may need. She leads them through the underbrush in the fair morning mist. Karkat has a fair-sized hatchet on his back, along with a backpack full of more useful items, while Dave carries a machete and a satchel with the Folder and first-aid in it. The fog is thick and heavy in the trees, and the morning sun gleams off the moisture to create a shimmering haze. They occasionally call for Jade by shouting her name above the noises of the forest. 

“Let’s split up, we’ll cover more ground that way.” Dave suggested to them, waving his knife in front of him to clear away some vines. 

“Oh fuck no,” Karkat stopped walking to look at him. “That’s what people say before they disappear and die.” 

“Only in your movies you fucking binge-monkey.” He was wiping off his blade on his black jeans. 

Karkat grumbled, biting back a potentially hurtful insult that he almost said before Roxy chimed in and sweetly suggested that they split up but keep in contact via these walkie-talkies that she had. It took a moment of convincing to get Karkat to agree, but once he did they each took a pocket-intercom and parted ways. Karkat took the direction that went uphill, hiking through the creek without worrying about his shoes getting wet. Over the radio he’d keep in contact with Dave and Roxy, occasionally getting into a snark-battle with them. Eventually his feet took him to a small clearing, cut through by a dirt road that was close to being overgrown. Stopping here, he caught his breath and looked down both ways as far as he could see, till the road curved away into the underbrush. 

He straightened out his back and thought about the odds here. There were two directions he could follow this road in, and both seemed equal in likelihood to be leading to them. If Jade had been wandering out here, and had come across this road, chances are she followed it to somewhere. God knows where it actually lead to though. He sighed heavily, picked a direction, and began walking without thinking too hard about it. It had been what, -three hours?- Of walking around out here searching for them, and by now his feet were getting tired. He held up his pocket-radio and began to speak into it. 

“I found a road.” 

A moment of static, and then Dave’s voice came on. “Oh sick, you following it?” 

“Yes I’m following it you dingus what else would I do with it? You think I’d just pull out a chair and stare at it for a good five hours? Inspect it till I-“ 

Dave cut him off, “Jesus, man, do you have a single ounce of chill in you? For just five seconds?” 

Karkat took in a deep breath to begin what could’ve been a hilariously long tangent, but listen, I’m not writing that. I’m just not. So Roxy cuts in and tells them to just keep looking and not get caught up with pestering each other. After another long while of walking, the road takes Karkat to the clearing with the two rows of cabins, and he promptly begins to investigate. First he checks the doors of the first row of cabins, finding them all locked and empty. He gets to the second row, checking each of those doors, all of them locked, till he gets to the last one. Standing outside this last cabin door, he can hear questionable noises coming from inside.

Before he checks the doorknob he leans to press an ear to the door, and behind it he recognizes the sounds as creaking, and, groaning? What? He stands up straight, half of his mind thinks it might know where this is going but he’s not putting much thought into it as he is mouthing “What the fuck” silently. Unsettling, yes, but he still checks the door with his nerves on edge to find it unlocked. It opens slowly, letting the daylight in with a long eerie creak. It was a bit dark in there, and it was pretty bright outside, so it took a moment for his eyes to adjust but once they did the light revealed, in the opposite corner of the cabin, the image of a bed and the bare back of Jade, rolling in rhythmic movements as she sits on top of a man with wings and- oh what the SHIT- WHAT FUCK OH 

He turns and slams the door shut again while yelling a string of curses, hearing the sound of shouting, distressed cawing, and tumbling to the floor within the cabin. He faintly hears an angry Jade demanding to know “WHO THE /FUCK/ IS THERE??” There’s a bit of shuffling, and then the door flies open to reveal Jade, looking a bit panicked and, dare he say, furious, holding a sheet tightly around herself and oh fuck she has a gun. Big gun. Her hair is messy and falls around her bare shoulders in a way that nobody can deny is actually rather hot. 

“JADE??” Karkat is very taken aback by this encounter. “WHAT THE FUCK IS- WHY- WH???!” 

She still has the gun pointed at him. “Karkat?! What the hell are you doing here w-“ 

Dave’s voice, hoarse and a bit shaky, cuts in next, from somewhere inside the cabin. “Karkat??? Why is he here??” There’s the sound of stumbling before Dave’s face pops around the side of the doorframe to glare at whatever the fuck just came and interrupted them. “Karkat why in the name of all that’s good in hell are you here?!” 

“I-“ 

“GET OUT!!” 

“I CAME HERE LOOKING FOR YOU FUCKERS!!! JESUS FUCK SORRY I DIDN’T KNOW YOU’D LITERALLY BE FUCKING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GODAMN WOODS WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE ALSO DAVE??? YOU HAVE SOME FUCKING EXPLAINING TO DO-“ 

Jade was lowering her gun, standing in the doorway with an expression that was more irritated now than anything. “Karkat.” She said. 

“YOU HAVE SOME EXPLAINING TO DO TOO JADE DON’T THINK YOUR OFF THE HOOK HERE, LIKE FOR STARTERS WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING FUCKING FRANKEN-DAVE IN AN ABANDONED CAMP SITE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WOODS DO YOU HAVE /ANY/ IDEA HOW FUCKING SHADY THIS IS-“ 

“Karkat!” She said more sternly, holding the sheets a bit tighter. 

“FIRST OF ALL,“ Dave chimed in again, still a bit hoarse, “this is none of your damn business! Weather or not Jade and I did-the-thang has fuckall to do with you and your opinions! We may or may not have gotten on a bit while here alone but emphasis on ALONE, you fucker, because this does not have and should not have a single /single/ FUCKING thing to do with you or anyone else, SECOND, why did you have to show up right now?! Did you /really/ have to show up right, *cough* right fucking now Karkat did you have to find us right FUCKING now??? Of all times???” 

“WELL HOW THE HELL WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW YOU TWO WOULD BE RUBBING AGAINST EACH OTHER LIKE A COUPLE OF WILD BEASTS IN HEAT THERE WAS NO WARNING OUTSIDE THE DOOR OR ANYTHING WHAT DID I MISS IT? DID I MISS THE BIG POSITIVELY MASSIVE SIGN OUTSIDE THAT SUPPOSEDLY SAYS ‘DO NOT ENTER PLEASE BECAUSE WE’VE BEEN GETTING ON LIKE WE DON’T HAVE A CARE IN THE GODAMN WORLD WHILE YOU’VE BEEN WORKING YOUR ASS OFF TRYING TO FIND US FOR WEEKS ON END’?? WELL??” 

“Listen here you ass with a face,” Bird-Dave, as mentally disoriented as he was, was about to string together the longest and most ridiculous argument of his non-existent career. 

By this point Jade had tuned them out and went back inside to throw on some clothes. She came back out, fully dressed and gun in hand, just as Karkat and Bird-Dave were reaching a hot point in their tiradic duet about flagrant violations of personal space and insecurities, with Dave still naked and half-hidden behind the doorframe and Karkat simply standing a few paces away from the cabin and screaming at him. 

“GOD,” Karkat was saying, “IF I KNEW YOU’D BE THIS FUCKING DIFFICULT AND INSECURE I WOULD’VE MADE SURE TO HAVE KEPT A GOOD TWENTY-MILE RADIUS AWAY FROM YOU OR ANY OF YOUR PAINFULLY DISGUSTING HABI-“ 

“Karkat!” She stood tall in the doorway with the gun on her back, “Shut up!” 

Bird-Dave took his silence as an opportunity, “Yeah, Karkat, shut the fuck up for one second, did you actually show up here just to peep on us like a fucking creepy old man in a dusty basement with a computer from the nineties or did you really have something even mildly important to tell us?” 

“I wasn’T CREEPING ON YOU, YOU FULL PLATE OF SHIT WITH A SIDE OF EGG, I JUST SO HAPPENED TO WALK IN AT THE TIME THAT YOU TWO HAD BEEN JACKING AROUND, AND YES I HAVE SOMETHING IMPORTANT I-“ 

Dave interrupted, “Because god I can’t think of anything more important than this that we could be talking about, no clearly my sex life is of utmost importance right now I can’t possibly see anything being any more important than this Jade can you?? God Jade help me out here can you think of any single fucking thing that could possibly be more absolutely encompassingly more important right /right/ fucking now?? Can-“ 

“Dave!” Jade was staring sharply down at him. “You too! Shut the hell your mouth! You’re both supposed to be grown-ass men! We have better things to be fussing over! Stop making a mountain out of a molehill! Now, Karkat,” she aimed her harsh stare back to him, “how are you here, why are you here, and is anyone else with you? Can you answer that for me? or does either of you children need to use the potty first? Hm?” 

Both of them were silent, with the air of guilty children that were being thoroughly corrected by their parents and couldn’t say anything to help their case anymore. 

“That’s what I fucking thought! Now,” she cocked her gun, but wasn’t aiming it at anyone. “If you two are done, I’ll ask again,” her voice softened a bit, “How are you here, why are you here, and is anyone else with you?” She sighed, Karkat didn’t ask for or deserve any of this. “Also would you like a cup of filtered rainwater? We don’t have any tea.” Karkat was about to answer, but then She turned to Dave to say, “also, Dave, put on some clothes. I’m sorry but there’s no way we’re continuing that now.”


	10. Void Fever 2, “The Voidening”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And a case of static hiccups

Dave, the one that /wasn’t/ fused with a crow, was less-than-merrily trudging his way through the woods, hacking a path through all the shrubbery with his machete. The pocket-radio had been silent for a while now, so he thought about checking in on them soon. Beneath him the ground gave to his feet a bit and he slid ungracefully down a rough slope and tumbled to the ground not far below it. For a second he let himself lie there, in the dirt surrounded by greenery, almost completely hidden. He let himself lie there and silently wallow for a moment in self pity. It’s not like anyone was around to immediately care or judge him for it anyway.  
Really, he had never asked for any of this, and there was a lot to feel sorry for himself about.

But then the moment of wallowing in the dirt passed and he made himself get up and brush the dirt off of his clothes. Continuing, we weakly marched on with spirits that weren’t high and a heart that really wasn’t full of hope. He could probably use some company right about now. As if the thing had read his mind, the pocket-intercom had taken that moment to spontaneously burst into a fit of static, as if someone were trying to talk to him, but there wasn’t any official beeps or clicks to let him know that someone was trying to talk to him. Usually, in my experience, walkie-talkies have a thing where they beep when you press the button to talk and then beep again when you stop pressing the button to talk. The thing wasn’t doing any of that lovely beeping right now, though, it was just random static. 

There seemed to be a voice behind the static. A bit odd, but he answered to it anyway. “Hello?” He waited. “Roxy?” No one was answering. 

A second of static passed, and then Jades voice came in behind it. “Dave?” Was just about all he could make out. Her voice was distorted and covered by the interference. 

“Jade is that you?” He asked into the radio, “how did you get a walkie-talkie?” 

Her voice sounded distant, a bit scared, and fascinated, with those undertones of awe and fear vibing strong enough in her voice to be made out through all this static. “Dave I can hardly hear your voice! ...” the interference took over whatever it was she said after that, but then let up enough for him to hear, “I *static* see it, Dave I can see it! *static* It’s like- wa- *static* -tching a million movies at once *static* -amazing- ... *static* I’m a bit scared here — it’s cold, *static* -ave are you there? Can you hear me?” Her voice echoed in the interference like bad feedback. 

He was holding the little black box with both hands, trying his best to hear what she was saying, “I’m here,” he tried to be comforting, “I’m here. just, where are you? What are you talking about?” 

She continued speaking without any beeps to indicate she was pressing any buttons, as if the pocket-radio was picking up a signal from somewhere else. “it feels like- *static* -splitting into a thousand pieces, *static* -I can’t, I can’t- *static* -it hurts- *static*”

“Jade where are you? Where are-“ the radio cut him off. 

“I’m falling apart,” she sounded so urgent, “it hurts *static* -get me out, get,” a pause. “I don’t know where I’m going, Dave.” a long moment of complete silence cut through the noise for a solid seven seconds before her voice came back on again, a long enough time to make him worry, but when it did it was just her screaming “GET ME OUT GET ME OUT GET ME OUT-“ before it cut off again. 

He had to press the button several times to make it work, “Jade? Jade?! Ja-“ The radio fizzed and popped in his hands, making him drop it. Then there was silence. While he stared in a bit of shock at the half-fried pocket radio, the silence slowly began to fill in again with the sounds of birds, bugs, and wind rustling through the trees. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed but it was like there was a shift in everything and nothing felt right, again. He hadn’t felt that certain unease since he’d met up with Karkat at the bar, but now it was back. Slowly, he reached down and picked the radio back up, pressing the talk button and hesitantly speaking into it. “...hello?”

“Yeah?” Karkat’s voice responded normally, with the beeps and everything. 

“Karkat? Is Jade with you?” 

There was a small pause. “Well, yeah, I’ve found them. I was going to tell you-“ 

“-What the hell happened??” 

“Well I mean aside from finding them in the worst possible situation, not much. I’m explaining what I know to them and they’ve been explaining everything they know to me, and-“ 

The function that allowed them to cut each other off while talking over the radio wasn’t a very good function to have. “This is a really shitty time for   
games man,” Dave was very irritated and a bit spooked here, “what the hell is-“ 

Karkat cut in “what are you talking about? There is exactly zero pranking going on here you moist windbag.”

He sounded sincere, and Dave hadn’t known Karkat to ever be the type to play sick games with his friends heads while they were doing something serious. “... just give Jade the radio for a second.” 

He huffed over the intercom, “fine. Here,” 

Jade’s voice came on, sounding clear and bright and nothing like how her voice had sounded just a second ago, when it was clouded in static. There were also the beeps. The beeps were good and normal. “hey Dave, uh, it’s, it’s been a while” there was a bit of something like awkwardness and guilt weighing in her voice. Dave stood silently for a while, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on while staring emptily at the little radio in his hand. The silence lasted a minute or so before Jade checked on him, “Dave? You there?” 

“... yea.” 

~

Roxy was also making her way through the woods, walking easy, as the morning turned to noon, and then the noon turned to evening. Throughout all this walking and searching that she had done so far today, the mist hadn’t let up. In fact it had only risen a bit higher, to be a bit thicker, and was slowly condensing back to be a gentle rain. She hadn’t heard either of the boys on the radio for quite some time, maybe even a few hours, and decided to stop and check on them while she caught her breath and maybe sat down for a bit. Pressing the button revealed no beep. It wasn’t working. She pressed it again, but still no beep or little light or anything. Perhaps if she just pressed the button and spoke without worrying about the beep it would still work. It didn’t. 

There was no reply, no response to any button or dial she pressed or turned on it, and the little tinted screen on it was blank. Her radio was dead, apparently. For how long, she didn’t know. She stood and looked around, surveying what she could see before the mist swallowed the more distant landscape in a haze of grey and white. There was a rustling in the leaves around her, and a feeling at the back of her neck that she was being watched. Cocking her gun and adjusting her scarf, she continued to move, deciding that it probably wouldn’t be wise to stay in one place for too long. She had no maps or GPS system to aid her now, and now that her radio was dead she was pretty much entirely on her own. 

The clouds continued to cover up the light of the sun, making the world around her feel dimmer and more grim than it really was. In the heavy fog she could see movement, occasionally, and rustling. Something was in the mist, and it appeared to be following her. A while of walking later and the trees had given way to a sort of clearing, bordered by a crooked chainlink fence. Without much hesitation, Roxy scaled the fence and dropped down on the other side with a huff. Inside the fence was a sort of old, small graveyard, with tombstones that looked to be withered away by years of weather. All she could tell from some of the old rocks was that someone was buried there, no initials left on the worn stone or anything. 

The sky was grey and the evening rain began to pour lightly, soaking her fine lab clothes and stirring up a bit of mud. Moving through the graveyard felt like walking through time, as the tombstones became more coherent and less withered the further forward she went. There was one that she came upon that looked fairly recent and nicely decorated, with the name ‘Ashworth Thomas’ engraved onto the dark stone. Apparently Ashworth had died in 2001. She stood for a moment in silence to pay respects to all the dead people buried here, forgotten and remembered alike. The rain was a soothing sound, and was accompanied by birdsongs. Behind her was a shuffle. A shuffle, then a long, low growl, that was very quiet. 

Roxy turned around calmly with her gun at the ready, standing firm in the loose soil. In front of her was a tall, black, doggish creature, with very white teeth that snarled, blank white eyes that glared, and large dark wings. The thing loomed towards her slowly, rain dripping from it’s inky, strange appendages. She had the gun aimed precisely at its head, her finger was firm on the trigger but she didn’t pull, there was probably a reason this thing hadn’t attacked her yet. Instead she mimicked it by growling back, low and steady, to see what it’d do. It lunged at her with a deafening bark. 

~

“Have you heard from Roxy?” Dave was trudging his way through the underbrush, talking to Karkat via pocket-intercom in plans of meeting up with them by the cabins. “She hasn’t said anything in a while.” 

“Yeah, now that you mention,” Karkat was sitting around a fire with Jade and Bird-Dave, while Bird-Dave was cooking dinner. “I haven’t heard from her in, like, hours. Do you think she’s ok?” 

“She’s not responding to any of this and if her intercom was working she should be able to hear all of it.” Dave cut through a bush with his machete and stepped through. 

“Then shouldn’t we go look for her?” 

“Well I mean yeah, it’s a bit sketchy for her to just go silent like this.” He stopped to look at the sky, taking off his shades for a moment. It was just beginning to rain again, lightly. 

“Alright lets go then, Jade and this uh, other Dave can help us look so-“ 

“Nah y’all stay at the camp, I’ll find her and then we can re-group at the cabin-things you described.”

“Dave.” Karkat sounded more irritated than usual. “Would it actually cause you physical pain to please NOT cut me off?” 

“Donno I haven’t tried it yet.” 

“Also no you aren’t going looking for her alone this is how people get slowly picked off till there’s nobody left. We’re all going to look for her.” 

“So do you want me to find y’all at the cabins first before we go searching?” 

“Yes that’s what I’m saying.” Karkat was glaring softly at the fire over which Bird-Dave was slowly turning several large cuts of flesh. 

“Cause I’m gonna find Roxy first.” 

“Can you not?” 

“Probably but I think finding Roxy is more important than meeting up with you guys for whatever reason that you got from watching too many thrillers in your free time.” Dave shook his ankle loose from a bush and continued walking at a bit of a rushed pace. “Roxy went east right?” 

Karkat exhaled heavily. “Fine, you mutinous bastard, but we’re still going searching too. And yes she went East.” 

“Cool.” Following the compass, Dave headed in roughly the same direction that Roxy had gone, calling her name as he hustled onward. 

After Karkat gave Bird-Dave and Jade the lowdown on what was happening, they packed up the meat and headed off to find Roxy.

“Do you have anything belonging to Roxy?” Jade inquired, looking at Karkat while she was crouching next to Bec with an arm around them. “Any articles of clothing or some-such? We could have Bec track her down that way.” 

“Actually yea,” Karkat pulled out a pair of nice shoes that were unmistakably Roxy’s. “Have him smell these. Nice thinking Jade.” 

“Dude.” Bird-Dave was raising an eyebrow at him, looking up from what he was doing with the meat. “Why do you have a pair of her shoes?” 

“As you can see these are high-heals,” Karkat began with a somewhat aggressive tone, “not prime shoes for hiking through the goddamn jungle. I’m holding onto them for her, featherbrain.” 

“So what’s she wearing then?”

“First of all it’s hardly your business what shoes she’s wearing why do you care-“ 

“It’s hardly your business holding onto those shoes but would you look at-“ 

“-And sECOND she’s wearing sturdy combat boots that are actually quite fashionable with her ensemble.” 

“Wow how long have you been staring at her for?” 

“Shut up y-“ 

“-what were you gonna try on those shoes later?” 

Karkat was about to reply with an erect index finger and a heated temper but Jade cut in first with “LADIES, Ladies, Stop fighting, you’re both pretty.” She cocked her gun again for emphasis. “Bec seems to have a direction in mind, let’s be off! Chop chop!” Giving them both a stern look, she turned and began following Bec, who was waiting patiently with its tail wagging in anticipation. So they continued off on their side-quest to find Roxy. The sun was beginning to lazily slide it’s way down to the horizon, but none of them could see it due to the heavy fog. Calling for her, they walked for about forty-some minutes, maybe longer. There was a shuffle in the trees behind them, causing them all to stop. This wasn’t the kind of shuffle a squirrel would make, and Jade could’ve sworn she heard a soft growl that couldn’t’ve come from her dog. Sniff. “There’s something here.” Jade reported. “It’s not Roxy.” 

An uneasy silence settled over them, the kind of silence that was far too quiet to be good. Bird-Dave noticed some claw marks that had been violently scratched into the trunk of a tree, and inspected them warily. Another odd shuffle made them all jump, scanning through the misty woods as best they could. Suddenly, a large black hell-creature, same one we saw with Roxy, now with blood in its teeth, jumps out of the mist, grabs Karkat with a horrifying bark from the creature and a shout from the man, and carries him quickly up into the fabric of the sky.


	11. “You Said it Was a Paradox Because You’re Kind”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s just like antimatter, it’s Dumbos magic feather, you don’t need me here to cut you free.” 
> 
> “Machete” by Amanda Palmer

So Bird-Dave was from a failed timeline, I’m sure we all figured this out. But like, what happened? What’s up with that? Basically, the timeline split from the one we’ve been following when Dave had decided to try and undo the effects of the machine by taping into time itself and reversing what had happened to Jade. You know, like that one scene in that Marvel movie Doctor Strange when he gets ahold of the Eye of Agimogo or whatever it’s called and starts messing around with it, and reverses time for the partly-eaten apple on the table and it’s really cool because like the bites in the apple disappear and yea. 

Jade wasn’t really onboard with this plan, but she and Roxy help Dave build the machine anyway. Once it’s finished, about year or so later, this machine also fails them by doing something it wasn’t supposed to do. It taps into every alternate timeline and then shatters Jade across all of them. They presume she’s dead. Also, due to the strain that the machine put onto the fabric of reality, a hole was torn in it, and the freak reality-ripping accident kinda took apart half of the lab they were in and also half of the planet. It wasn’t good. So Dave gathered up what was left of his notes while reality crumbled around him and found a way to use the remains of the time-machine to send himself back in time to before they had ever decided to build it. 

He then gave the notes to our Dave and died. Y’all know what happened after that. However, the Jade that had been shattered across a million timelines, (we’ll call her Ghost-Jade in tandem with our “Bird-Dave” title,) didn’t really die, and is now doing her best to communicate with the “alpha timeline” of this terrible fanfiction I’m writing. She’s shown herself so far in the form of distorted images and voices in TV’s and radios, and also computers. Given enough willpower and patience, she could also sometimes compose her shattered self enough to make a physical mark on the world. But it’s really much easier for her to dwell in the artificial wavelengths in the air and in the radio signals broadcasting all over our planet, often bouncing away into space. 

Ghost-Jade is really just trying to apologize for the creature that the tear in spacetime let into their world, and also maybe help get rid of it if she can. This creatures name is Jack, and when the time-machine tore a hole in reality, Jack walked out of it. This version of Jack that I made up is really only interested in killing, for some reason. I’m sure there’s a backstory in there somewhere. 

~

Jack was griping Karkat in his claws, flying terrifyingly fast towards the sky and away from the safety of the ground. The earth sank away at an alarming rate, making his stomach tie itself into a dozen knots. Below him he could hear Jade yelling his name in a kind of shocked horror. She aimed her gun up at the creature that was flying away with Karkat, but Bird-Dave stopped her, pushing the barrel of the gun away from Karkat’s direction with a “Jade no you could shoot him by accident I don’t want-“ 

“Then what do you suggest we do??” She was looking at him with an angry kind of panic. 

“I can, I can fly after him.” He was already backing up. 

“Wait Dave wha-“ Jade couldn’t finish though, before he was already sprinting away and lunging into the air with a strong push from his wings. Birds are incredibly strong jumpers. Up he went, then, chasing after Karkat with his heartbeat thrumming hard in his ears and the wind stinging his eyes. Jack had already gotten pretty far even with Karkat throwing a tantrum in it’s claws. With a lot of effort he could gain on them, as Karkat was slowing it down significantly, kicking and clawing back at the thing holding him without thinking much about the consequences of falling from this height. With a final push forward from his wings, Dave rammed himself talons-first into Jack while yelling “BITCH”, and throwing them both tumbling through the air and knocking Karkat out of Jacks grasp. 

He made a reach for him, don’t get me wrong, but Bird-Dave couldn’t grab Karkat fast enough before he went plummeting away towards the earth, with gravity being a thing that could in fact kill him. Jack wrestled with Dave in mid-air, catching him by the wrist as they spun wildly downward at an angle, keeping him from chasing after Karkat, who was screaming as he fell. The drop was sickening, worse than any rollercoaster he’d ever been on, because this time there was no harness to cling to. Karkat flailed, desperately grabbing onto nothing until the trees swallowed him up and Dave could no longer see him. 

Daves heart dropped with his stomach and he looked back to Jack who was snarling at him, and with a violent anger-fueled kick he broke Jacks left wing. They tumbled down through the sky, fighting all the long way to the ground with Jack dragging him along. Dave began repeatedly kicking Jack, in the face, in the chest, in the shoulder, while Jack had his wrists in a painful death grip. The world was a twisting horizon, half earth and half sky, spinning violently around them as they respectively beat the shit out of each other. Black wings beat against larger black wings in front of a slowly setting sun, glaring orange behind them. The horizon was flipping upside down and there was this illusion that the entire earth was spinning around them menacingly fast, instead of them being the ones that were spinning. 

The ground began to race towards them very threateningly, growing dangerously close before Dave managed to kick the black thing away from him and catch some air under his wings to soften his rough landing. Even after trying to slow himself down he slammed hard into the ground and collapsed. The world still felt like it was spinning even after he was suddenly so still in the damp leaves and soil. His head was ringing as he tried to shakily lift himself off the ground that gravity was so forcefully pushing him down into. A small distance away he saw Jack pick up the axe that Karkat had dropped, before slowly turning to glare at him. Dave was trying to lift himself up with his arms but oh Jesus fuck it hurt, was his arm broken? 

Jack was shambling threateningly towards him with Karkat’s axe in hand, while Bird-Dave sat and struggled to stand, failing and falling back to the ground several times before realizing there was probably something terribly wrong with his ankle. He gave up on standing and resorted to just franticly trying to scoot away from Jack who was getting menacingly closer by the second, only able to use the one arm that wasn’t probably broken. A long distance away, he thought he could hear someone shout his name. His entire head was pounding with something that might be a mix of shock and adrenaline as Jack raised the axe above its head, looming over him and stepping on his left wrist, pinning him down. 

The axe came down with the force of an entire horse and made contact with his left wing, cleaving it free from the rest of him. His breathing hitched into an erratic and painfully rushed pace. A static blackness slowly invaded the corners of his vision, creeping towards the center and threatening to plunge him into darkness. The ringing stung his ears, growing louder till it was all he could hear. He couldn’t tell if he was passing out dangerously fast or going into shock, or maybe both. Stars started to swim in his vision as he watched Jack lift the axe over his head again. 

Then there was a shout, and suddenly Roxy was there, standing tall between him and Jack, with her gun pointed firmly at the things head. Neither Roxy nor Jack were hesitating, and a deafening gunshot fired through the air at the same time that Jack brought down the axe again, embedding it deep into her ribs. She fell, and in an instant, Roxy was gone. Her lifeless body lie cold in the mire at his inhuman feet. He looked up and Jack was nowhere to be seen. She had saved him.

It took a few moments to register with him, it was just so sudden and unbelievable. Half his mind refused to accept that she was gone, while the other brewed up thoughts of ‘why?’. She couldn’t have, her life was worth so much more wasn’t it? Why would she do this? He was just a copy of the person she loved like a son, he was just, ... he gave in and lied down in the dead leaves, letting the darkness in the corners of his vision cover him, sinking him into some black hole that he hadn’t known was in his head the whole time.

Distantly, he thought he could hear the voices of Karkat and Jade, vocalizing something he didn’t have the strength to translate into words, but he could hear the emotion still. They sounded distressed. They were distressed. Jade fell to her knees to scoop him up into her arms, checking his pulse and his breathing, before she noticed Roxy with Karkat’s axe in her sternum and had a fleeting moment of despair because she could only hold so many people in her arms and check their vitals at once. Karkat quickly caught up and held Bird-Dave for her so she could go over Roxy’s grievous injuries. Jade was checking her pulse to find nothing, a stream of “no, no, no no no no-“s falling from her throat. 

She held Roxy tightly in her arms and cried into her shirt. Rain was still falling gently from the heavens, dripping softly down her neck and making her hair stick to her cheeks. Karkat was just starting to register what had happened, his eyes wide as he began to cry. Before he’d hit the ground after Jack had dropped him, Roxy had jumped out of the mist and caught him, saving him before gently setting him on the ground to go help Bird-Dave. That’s how Karkat was still alive. The sun was setting behind the mist, slowly lying down behind the horizon with a golden yawn echoing off the clouds, before falling asleep beneath the hills and sending the world into a state of darkness called night. 

Karkat and Jade carried Roxy and Bird-Dave back to the cabins, knowing they’d need to take care of Bird-Dave’s wounds but unsure of what to do with Roxy. Jade wasn’t allowed to revive her with the machine, though, they wouldn’t like that. They couldn’t leave her behind, either. No matter how hard they tried they couldn’t bring themselves to leave her there, so they didn’t. Bec was still with them, whining and trying to see why they were carrying these people instead of letting them walk. If Jades machine had actually worked, it might’ve let Jade know that Bec was thinking “Why aren’t they moving? They aren’t dead right? Please show me.” Which is kind of depressing so we aren’t going to speculate that any further. 

Back at the cabins they lied Bird-Dave down to rest, Pouring him a glass of water and patching up most all of his major injuries. He was missing a wing now, which must be like getting an arm chopped off, and so they did their best to patch that up and stop the bleeding. Jade sat on the edge of the bed and brushed his hair out of his face. There were no scars on his cheek. Karkat was leaning against one of the walls with his arms crossed. Silence settled in the small one-room cabin, and nobody was making eye contact. Karkat broke the silence. “So what about the other Dave?” He was asking hesitantly, carefully, because once you address this situation there’s so many things that could go wrong. 

“What about him?” She spoke softly. Both of their voices were a bit warbled from crying. 

“Well, first off we should definitely check on him, if that thing is still out there. And second what should we tell him, you know, about Roxy.” 

“...I don’t know. We should tell him the truth I guess, but not until he gets here. I don’t want him grieving by himself in the middle of the woods.” 

“Yeah.” Karkat paused. “And third, what do we do about there being two of him? And you apparently being in love with one?” 

Jade took a while to respond, and each second that she sat in silence, not looking at him, made the air in the room more tense. Finally she relieved him, “I don’t know.” She sounded rather depressed and Karkat decided that maybe they should try addressing this last question again some later day when they were safe and not grieving. It would have to be addressed eventually, just not right now. 

Karkat’s radio buzzed to life, Dave’s voice. “Guys what happened? I heard a gunshot and I can’t find Roxy, I’ve been trying to get in touch with you guys for like an hour but it hasn’t been working Karkat are you there? It’s dark out now and I can hardly see man -“ 

“Dave, hey,” Karkat responded after taking a deep breath. “We’re fine, we’ve found Roxy but..” he paused briefly and during that pause Dave displayed how impatient he was at the moment. 

“-But what? Where are you? Karkat are you okay why do you sound like that? Talk to me man wha-“ 

“-Listen, Just come back to the cabins alright? Just get back here and I’ll let you know.” Karkat had slid down the wall to sit on the floor. 

“Dude no what’s going on just tell me.” Dave sounded like he was trying not to sound as worried as he clearly was. 

“It’s not safe in the woods right now,” Karkat was gathering the strength to stand back up, “Just get back here as quickly as possible. Or how about we meet you in the middle? I know we can track locations with these things so let’s just head towards each other as fast as possible.” 

“Why what’s out here.” 

“Just do what I’m asking you to. Just once.” Karkat’s voice was very heavy by this point, sounding defeated and tired. “Please?” 

“...Alright.” 

Jade was still sitting on the edge of the bed, with Bec curled up next to her. She looked at him with tired eyes. “So we’re going after Dave?” 

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Grab your gun.” 

“What about this Dave?” She gestured to Bird-Dave. 

Karkat bit back a potentially hurtful phrase, which was something he didn’t often do, but because this was Jade and she’d been through enough already he made an exception. “...We can leave Bec with him. Just lock the door and he should be ok.” 

“I donno,,” She rubbed Bec’s side. 

“I promise you nothing’s gonna happen to him, ok?” He slung the bag over his shoulder. “Listen, we don’t have all the proper medical supplies to really help him yet, just enough to stop the bleeding, but the Dave that’s out in the woods does. He has the med kit with him, so there’s another reason to go after him for you. And there’s no way in hell I’m going out there alone.” 

Jade sighed through her nose, gently brushing her fingers over Bird-Dave’s cheek. ‘I’m sorry’ was the only thing she was thinking. Looking at him one last time, she got up and put the gun on her back, setting the long knife by the water next to the bed for him. Bec stayed by his side. Then, once they were ready, her and Karkat went out the door, shutting it to find words scrawled violently onto the outside of the cabin. 

“Oh, Jesus, what?” Commented Karkat. He flicked on a flashlight to get a better look. 

On the side of the cabin was an e-mail address, by the looks of it, and then the words “RUN, JACK, RUN” torn into the wood underneath it. 

“What could this mean?” Jade touched the words on the side of the cabin carefully. 

“Like I’ll know.” He looked at the message like it was a tall dark figure with three eyes slowly approaching him while chanting ominously about his sins. 

“Ah, splinters.” Jade pulled her hand away from the wall of the cabin and inspected it. “...you still think it’s safe to leave Dave in there?” 

“Well I know it’s even less safe to leave the other Dave out there,” he pointed to the dark woods, “now that it’s night especially.” He let Jade chew on that for a second. “So are we going?” 

“I guess so.” Jade admitted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Press F to pay respects


	12. String Theory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bird-Dave has a fever dream in another plane of reality and Ghost-Jade tries to give you a reason to stay tuned over the hiatus.
> 
> More big credits to Hal for writing Dave’s lines in this one.

Consciousness was a surface that Bird-Dave found himself swimming up towards, but then when he reached the end of the tunnel, there was no light. The world was dark and filled with pain and the sound of crickets. There was this soft creature breathing next to him, its fur was a pleasant feeling under his arm and its head was a comforting weight on his chest. Bec seemed to notice when he slowly began to stir and groan his way back to consciousness. He felt like he was waking up after coming home from The War or something, with his head filled with PTSD inducing memories and his body full of really bad probably permanent injuries. A headache pounded through his scull, thrumming in his ears, and the screaming crickets outside weren’t helping. 

Before he regarded the world around him, he began by checking himself and assessing the damage. A deep breath allowed his chest to rise and fall, and he found that his lungs were in fine working order. Nice. His heart seemed to be running smoothly as well, so that was good. Testing each of his limbs revealed several problems, though. For starters, his right arm was fine but his left arm was oh shit yea still broken hm that hurt a lot maybe he should get something for that. Like a sling or some pain killers would be great. His back felt alright, and he arched it off the bed so his wings could unfurl underneath him and stretch out. The right wing seemed to be fine, moving well without pain, but the left wing just, didn’t seem to be there. It felt... invisible? Surely there’s a better way to phrase this. 

Most of his left wing was gone. In fact, whatever was left of his left wing was in a whole lot of pain. Hm. His fingers went to feel where it should’ve been, but instead of feathers or blood they found cotton wrapped thick around the stump of bone. Someone must’ve sacrificed a shirt or other article of clothing. He quickly realized that this meant he wouldn’t be able to fly anymore, and another layer of despair was added to the slowly growing pile on his chest. Letting his head lie back, he shut his eyes and tried to relax, maybe to help the headache go away some. Bec nuzzled him and wuffed. Bird-Dave sighed as he ran his fingers through Bec’s fur. At least this dog was here to comfort him. But where was Jade? How did he get here? 

He sat up slowly, with some effort, to try and get a look around the dark room. Nobody to be seen. Wind whistled eerily around the walls of the small cabin, and he began to worry about the fact that he appeared to be by himself here, with only Bec to keep him from being entirely alone. The thought of being entirely alone in this situation began to make itself into a rather ghastly concept, so he scratched behind Bec’s ears with a bit of extra fondness. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed to place his feet on the floor, he found a bad pain in his right ankle. Walking on these fucking bird stilt legs was difficult enough as it was without the ankle issues. Maybe his ankle had gotten jacked up from the rough landing, or from the harsh kicking fit he had at Jack, or — as he was going through his memories, he remembered Karkat. He remembered Karkat screaming as the earth pulled him down from the sky, till he disappeared into the trees. 

Another layer of despair settled onto the pile. Was Karkat okay? Maybe he shouldn’t’ve given the guy such a hard time right before, regardless of how irritated he was with him. Then, while he was strolling down memory/regret lane, he remembered Roxy. Oh, fuck, Roxy. She definitely wasn’t okay. In fact she was gone. Another layer of despair got added to the pile and all his vital organs gave in and collectively sank to the floor. Was this his fault? He very quickly buried this thought alive, the very second it had been born, and then placed a metaphorical vault over it. That was enough despair for one day, thank you very much. Next to the bed he found the makeshift cup of water and drank it. The headache persisted. 

Setting down the water, he made an attempt to stand, only to be quickly reminded that there was something awfully wrong with his right ankle. For some reason, it felt like the longer that he was awake for, the worse things seemed to get for him. Maybe he should just go back to being unconscious. Bec hopped off the bed and trotted over to the door, scratching at it briefly before looking back at him. He picked up the long knife and sheathed it by the waistband of his torn jeans. Leaning on the wall, he limped slowly towards the door, feeling terribly unbalanced with a missing wing. He pushed forward to find someone to tell him what had happened. To find someone to keep him from being alone here. 

The whole world was dark, and when he opened the door it was only slightly less dark because of the moon. He thought he could hear something scamper away into the trees as he slowly limped out into the cool night wind. Bec hustled past his feet to trot a good few yards away, before turning around to bark at him. Bird-Dave leaned heavily on the outside wall of the cabin, confused as he watched Bec bark and whine in his direction while staying firmly in place eight yards away. It took a minute to figure out that Bec wasn’t barking at him, he was barking at the wall behind him. So he pushed off the wall of the cabin with a chest-full of heavy air and limped over to Bec, who didn’t move, to look at what they were looking at and see what all the fuss was about. Upon turning around to see the wall, he startled back a step. It was just a bit frightening to see words scratched violently in large letters across the side of the cabin at night. 

He took note of the E-mail, mentally jotting that down, and also the apparent message to some fucker named Jack, telling them to run. Who was Jack? Was it a reference to something? Regardless of what it was, he found the way in which the message had been cut into the wood wall of the cabin a bit disturbing. Wouldn’t he have heard someone scratching all that on the walls? He was in a coma of sorts so it’s possible he wouldn’t have heard it. Did Jade put that there? Or maybe it was the black fucker that was an awful lot like mothman now that he thought about it. That thing owed him a wing. And a Mom. And possibly a best friend too. The fucker was in deep debt, basically. 

Anyway, Bird-Dave turned around again, calling for Jade. Bec, now satisfied that he had seen the Thing, stopped barking and began sniffing, before trotting off into the woods. Bec looked over their shoulder like they were waiting for him to follow. Taking a wild guess that Bec was going to lead him to Jade, he followed. Walking was suddenly an extreme pain in the ass, and balance was also a problem. So he picked up a staff-sized stick from the ground and leaned on that to help him go. He thought back to all the walking his past self had done so effortlessly and silently cursed the fact that he had taken all that for granted. Funny how you only really realize how nice having something basic is when it’s taken from you. Like walking painlessly, for example. 

Bec took him deep into some part of the woods that he didn’t remember walking through before. Or maybe it was the lack of daylight that made it all look different. Surely he would’ve remembered coming here at some point, it wasn’t very far from the cabin. Well, maybe, all the forestry tended to look very self-similar after so long. That and he was always shit at keeping his bearings. In the darkness he could hardly see anything, and the moonlight on Bec’s white fur was just about the only thing he could really make out. Then there was this small metal shed, something he had no memory of ever seeing before, shoddy, rusty and hardly held together by some invisible force. 

On the surface of the metal he could see some things were scratched, more specifically cuss words and some initials with a heart drawn around them, the kinds of things middle schoolers might graffiti onto random shit they find in the woods. He opened the door, which was left broken and unlocked, and it screeched open with an eerie scuffing noise. Inside was a screen filled with static, on a small but ancient computer, surrounded by wires all running into the ground. The computer sat on a metal shelf in front of a chair that looked like it was two screws away from giving up on life. The screen cast a pale, lifeless light around the very small room in the shed, and it was the only thing making any light for miles. 

It’s cold glow cut through the darkness and illuminated his face in a ghastly sort of way. Bec whined and waited outside while he stepped inside and sat on the chair, which creaked with complaint in response to being sat on. He rested the wood staff against the wall, and when he looked back at the computer the static was gone and replaced by a glitchy login screen. There was a sticky-note on the keyboard, and on the sticky note was another, different E-mail and a password, which he used to log in. The screen flickered for a moment and then displayed an inbox, which was empty. He sent a message to the e-mail address that had been scrawled onto the side of the cabin and waited. “yo who are you why is your email on my house who is jack

seriously what the hell who are you

are you like some creepy-ass stalker

are you gonna come kill me in my feathery sleep” he wrote. 

Outside the crickets chirped loudly, and Bec was waiting patiently and digging at the ground outside the open door of the shed. He could hear wind moving the trees and shuffling the leaves, he could hear the shed creak a bit under the push of a breeze, he could hear the bugs outside making their ruckus, he could hear a lot of things. A reply to his message appeared and when he opened it the screen flickered again. 

“Ah hey Dave! This is Jade, the one from your timeline. I’m glad you were able to reach me. I’m contacting you about Jack, and also to apologize.” It read. 

He could hear his heartbeat. TG: “jade what the fuck youre dead and also in another timeline im calling bullshit i saw you get torn apart by that machine with my own two eyes and you still havent told me who this jack dude is

what are you apologising for though

i mean if im ignoring the fact that the corpse of my friend is somehow emailing me across time and also wrote on my house and all the other shit that could hypothetically be your fault

why are you saying sorry”

GG: “I’m actually mostly okay! My physical form is toast but now I can interact with your universe via a glitch in spacetime, it’s complicated and also pretty fascinating! I’ve got a whole new perspective on the multiverse but that’s besides the point. I’m apologizing for Jack, I’m the reason he’s in your universe. He’s the guy that took off your wing which I’m sorry about too. See, he’s supposed to be on a long three-year trip between universes that have little relation to ours while someone similar to him chases him, but our experiment tore a hole in spacetime and he fell through it. I’m gonna try to put him back so he won’t bother you anymore but I’m short on ideas.” 

The door suddenly shut behind him with a clang. He could still hear the world outside loud and clear, if not a bit muffled. Bec was scratching at the door that had just spontaneously shut him in. He would test the door and see if he could figure out what had closed it in a second, after he sent his reply. 

TG: “so wait youre a ghost

dude thats so cool

plus you can like reach your transparent ghosty arms into real life and like haunt shit and stuff

right

youd better be able to haunt stuff

i mean like whats the point of being a magical multiverse ghost if you can't go and fuck with people

also wait the weirdass dog bird mothman things name is jack

come the fuck on thats like not even a good name

why couldnt it have some crazy intimidating evil monster name

like

the void creature or mothman with only one eye

but good luck with that he nearly fucking killed me but then again youre a ghost theres not much he can do to you i guess”

GG: “Yeah, I’m basically a ghost but I donno if I can haunt things! I may have accidentally scared Karkat at one point, another thing I’m sorry about. I was still trying to figure out what had happened to me but anyway! Yes the mothman guy is called Jack. I’m not sure how much damage Jack can do to me but I don’t think he’ll be able to really do much at all, which is an advantage on our side. I can, however, probably do some damage to him if I need to but I’d like to keep the violence to a minimum! 

You’ve always been good with time, do you think you might have any ideas on how to put him back through the rip, maybe with the help of these advantages I mentioned?”

He tested the door and found he couldn’t open it, no matter how hard he tried. Sitting back down, he replied,   
TG: “i mean like is there an actual hole in the sky somewhere or is it metaphorical” There was a long pause as he waited for her response.  
“hello jade please respond to me”

Finally her response appeared and everything but the screen seemed to flicker when he opened it.  
GG: “No it’s not really a physical or corporeal hole, but rather a very abstract hole in the very concept of time and space itself. Think of all the alternate universes and timelines as threads woven together into one giant blanket of everything. Our machine was supposed to re-arrange some of those threads in order to reverse what had happened to me, remember? But then it failed and wound up tearing the metaphorical threads apart, breaking them and creating a bunch of loose ends for things to fall through and get tangled up in. The tear is probably getting worse the more I mess with it, so I’d like to get jack back to the time and place and universe he’s supposed to be in as soon as possible.”

TG: “oh right okay

so what we need is to capture jack in one specific thread at some point before that thread broke

i mean thats assuming that time is linear and following each thread and that split timelines aren't a thing

how would that work

like youre weaving this massive universe blanket and like hey what the fuck where'd all these extra threads come from

anyway we gotta catch him LONG before these threads broke and we have to figure out what turned our machine from a reweaver (if thats even a thing idk) into a seamripper

and then we need to turn it into a crazy timeline needle and thread and resew this damned blanket before the baby strangles itself like jesus brenda how hard is it to make sure your baby doesnt shove his head into a blanket”  
He tapped his finger on the metal shelf while waiting for a response. 

GG: “yeah! But then how do we get ahold of the machine again? Didn’t it blow up and/or fall through the rip it made? And even if it didn’t, it’d still be in another timeline... I guess I could probably find it, because I’ve pretty much fallen between all the threads myself. But then what? 

Should we just take our blueprints and make a whole new machine for this?”

He began typing out his response, but then the entire world outside suddenly went entirely quiet, like someone had paused a recording. He couldn’t hear anything other than the heartbeat in his ears and the small buzz from the computer. When he looked back at the screen his reply was gone and he had to re-type it.   
TG: “i mean itd probably be easiest to just rebuild it with the blueprints

and jack tried to kill me just recently so he wont be to hard to track down

i gave them to another version of myself but idk where he is atm

were gonna have to find a way to give you a physical body that you can inhabit cause like im currently a wreck with no balance”  
He couldn’t even hear Bec scratching at the door anymore. Was that just his head being weird or was something actually happening around him? 

GG: “That’s a good idea... 

We could always build a robot body for me to inhabit, I remember you mentioned your brother was always good with mechanics.”

TG: “yeah he is

i dunno what hes up to in this universe though

i mean like hes a wandering peice of shit i dont think hes ever been anywhere twice”  
The pauses in-between responses when he had to wait were starting to become unbearable. 

GG: “Hm.

He may not be the most reliable thing to bet our money on, and from what I’ve heard you say about him I’m honestly not sure if we should really bring him into this. I don’t know what other options we have though.. What do you think?”

TG: “yeah i agree

if i can track down a phone and data ill try to call him but again hes impossible to find

but if that doesnt work out

man

i dunno”

There was another long pause.  
GG: “I guess we’ll need a plan B, but first let me get this straight. I’m gonna have to grab Jack and drag him back to the thread/universe-timeline he’s supposed to be in, then we need to re-build this machine into something that can sew the tear back together, and that should solve our problems. That’s the basic plan so far, am I right?”

TG: “Yeah

actually i just remembered something

so basically i like fucking died right after showing up here

and jade from this universe took me to this machine that fused my dead body with this crow

and now i have wings and bird feet and instinctually hoard shiny things

but i was thinking we could maybe track it down and get you to posess something simple like an iphone or a roomba or whatever

and then we fuse you with something and then bam you have a body

i mean idk who or what it would be but it could work”  
He sat back in the cold chair and frowned at the screen in front of him. The light on his face in the dark room was ghostly. In the corner of the shed, a cobweb was knit into the shape of a funnel leading to death. 

GG: “I’m not sure that’s the best idea... I don’t know how many times you can fuse things using that machine before we have to deal with even more serious consequences.”

TG: “okay well do you have any other ideas

its that or find dirk or build it without you”

GG: “Honestly if the other Jade is still fully functioning I don’t think you really need me for anything other than getting Jack back to where he’s supposed to be and also maybe for insight on all this timeline AU stuff. I’d say just get these ideas and this information to the others and we’ll work from there. Though, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to speak clearly to you again after this, so we should probably figure out a solid plan before you leave.”

TG: “okay sounds good

i currently have absolutely no idea where anyone is except that roxy is dead

so thats a thing”  
The air in his mouth began to taste metallic and dusty. 

GG: “I know, I saw. I was particularly upset about that when I decided to contact you via e-mail and wrote my address onto the side of your cabin. 

Thus the angry scrawling. Sorry about that. 

Funny thing, I’m not actually typing any of this on a computer or even properly e-mailing you. I’m kind of haunting this computer for the moment to talk to you, to put it simply.”

TG: “whoah dude seriously

can you like see me

can you see me flipping you off right now

haha

but why are you deteriorating

why won't you be as coherent anymore

aw shit is this the last time im gonna talk to you

damn”

The screen flickered. 

GG: “Haha! Yeah kinda, I can’t really hold this for all that long, it gets pretty exhausting. I’m probably going to have to go soon, sorry. I should see you one last time before I take Jack away. I’ll miss you!”

The world flickered.

TG: “yeah you too

damn this is getting emotional time for a new topic of conversation”

GG: “Alright. So let’s go over the plan one more time! 

You’re going to find the others and tell them everything, and you’re going to use the old blueprints help them build the new machine to fix the tear in spacetime. I should be able to grab Jack before you finish the machine.”

The shed, the cobweb, and the world disappeared and it became just him and this computer sitting in the absolute blackness. 

TG: “okay

and where/when/what universe are we putting jack in”

GG: “That’s for me to worry about! I’ve got to go now, is there anything else you’d like to bring up or get settled before I leave?”

He smiled, it was so very tempting to bring up the fact that him and the other Jade had fucked. She probably had the right to know about that anyway.  
TG: “haha only one thing”

GG: “What’s that?”

TG: “i fucked alternate reality you

sayonara jade

ill see you on the other side”

It was almost like he could hear her voice when she said  
GG: “Oh

Well ok, then, bye! <3”

And then even the computer disappeared and he was left floating in some kind of void. A sort of sharp ringing filled his ears as he looked up at the surface again. Swimming towards it, he took a moment to realize how very bizarre this all was. Bird-Dave opened his eyes to find himself laying on the bed in the cabin again. He sat up and all the pain was still there. The door was left open, swaying a bit as the breeze whispered against it. The crickets chirped loudly and he could hear Bec running outside. Next to him he noticed the cup of rainwater was empty and the knife was gone. Bec ran in through the open door of the cabin with a bark and hopped up onto the bed with him to lick his face. He greeted Bec and scratched behind his ears, trying to figure out what exactly had just happened. 

It was night still, and in the darkness he sat and thought about what to tell the others when they got back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any Questions?


	13. No One’s Ever Lost Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nothing's ever lost forever  
> it's just caught  
> inside the cushions  
> of your couch  
> and when you find it you'll have  
> such a nice surprise
> 
> nothing's ever lost forever  
> it's just hiding  
> in the recess of your mind  
> and when you need it  
> it will come to you at night
> 
> no one's ever lost forever  
> when they die they go away  
> but they will visit  
> you occasionally  
> do not be afraid
> 
> no one's ever lost forever  
> they are caught  
> inside your heart  
> if you garden them  
> and water them  
> they make you what you are
> 
> Lyrics are from the song “Lost”- by Amanda Palmer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unedited

“you know,” Karkat started, “I once knew a guy named Jack. He was a really cool guy, very helpful, and he was actually pretty relatable. He was my friend for a while before I lost his contact.”

Dave, who Karkat and Jade had found and were now walking back with, turned to him. “I think you’ve told me about this guy, didn’t he try to stab you?”

“That was just his way of saying hi.”

Dave was almost, but not quite, smiling. “Wasn’t he like, part of a gang?” 

“They did good things outside of the law, Dave. But we’re getting off topic, -“

“Wasn’t he with the mafia? Organized crime?” 

“ANYWAY, “ Karkat signed the universal gesture that often means it's time to change the fucking topic. “Jade, you remember the way back to the cabins, right?” 

“Yes,” Said Jade, adjusting the gun strap on her shoulder, “I think I do.” 

So they carried on through the woods, following Jades lead. Trouble started with an unsettling gust of wind, making the trees tremble and tossing their hair in all the wrong directions. The metaphorical hair on the back of Jades neck stood on end, something was amiss. Then they heard a low growl behind them. Her ears flicked back against her scull, she spun around to point her gun at the sound, which was too deep and threatening to be Bec. Her eyes stopped on Jack, widening in a bit of shock.

“Oh, goddamnit,” Karkat said as he looked behind him at the looming black figure with the narrow stark white eyes, “You again? Can’t you find anyone else to murder?” 

Dave immediately took five steps back from the sight and tripped over a bothersome root. 

Jade didn’t hesitate, bitch, she shot directly at Jacks head repeatedly and only stopped when Dave shouted that her bullets were coming back at him from behind. He was standing stiff with his back to a tree and gripping his machete. Karkat went and joined him. Jade faced a moment of panic, now that her bullets had no effect, before she turned her gun around and whacked Jack upside the head with the butt of her gun. It worked, but it scared the living daylights out of the boys behind her when she got close to Jack. 

“Bad dog-mothman-cryptid-thing! Bad!!!” She said, continuing to beat his head with the gun. 

Jack quickly decided he’d had enough and teleported away behind her and in front of DaveKat. They huddled closer. 

“No!!” Jade screamed when Jack ripped the machete out of Dave’s hands and reeled it back to slash at them with. Before he could strike them, a brilliant golden flash shot through the woods and made them all stop. A low crackle echoed through the still forest, like thunder after lightning. All of them turned to see the source of the flash. 

“Rose??” 

She was standing tall like her mother, white wand between her fingers with her wrist arched, pointed at Jack. Her head lowered in what was probably a microscopic nod, affirming that yea, this is Rose. 

“Kanaya??” Said Karkat. 

A woman with radiant white skin and dark hair stepped out from behind Rose, chainsaw in hand. “Karkat?” She smiled, flashing her fangs. “It‘s been a while.” 

Karkat laughed nervously and nodded, glancing back at Jack. 

Jack growled and clenched his teeth, moving towards our favorite lesbians and raising the machete. With a flick of her wrist, Rose shot another focused bolt of light at Jack, sending him reeling back into a tree. Without looking away from Jack, Dave and Karkat locked hands and ran out of the way. Kanaya revved up her chainsaw and dashed at Jack, who teleported away and left her to slice through the tree behind him. Pulling out a second wand, the oracle dressed in lavender continued her attack on Jack. 

Dave turned to Jade. “What should we do?” 

Jade chewed on her lip. “Hold on,” she ran up to Jack and, using her gun like a bat, struck him on the back of the head. Rose shot a spell at Jacks hand and the machete went flying out of his grasp, landing at Dave’s feet. 

“Cool” he said, picking it up. 

Karkat, though he was reluctant to use it since it had killed Roxy, pulled the axe out of his bag to join them in fighting Jack. They drove the fight uphill, chasing Jack into a clearing at the top of the hill, where the grass is tall. In the clearing is an old abandoned house, built of grey wood and worn brick, overgrown with vines that crawl up the sides of the old building. Moss grows in the walls, adding a green, earthy tinge to the structure. Windowsills were pale with peeling paint. Wooden walls were grey with greenish growths. The moon is bright silver, and it peers sharply down through the clouds, illuminating the scene in a faint apparition of moonlight. Here where there are no man-made lights to drown out the stars, the night sky is bright enough to cast shadows. Fireflies can be seen briefly emitting a soft yellow glow as they dance peacefully above the tall, wild grass. 

Jack stops in front of the house and turns to face Rose, who is sprinting at him with another spell at the ready. He teleports away at the last second and Rose blasts a hole in the wall behind him. She pauses to catch her breath while the others catch up to her. 

“Where’s,” Kanaya panted, “Where’s the beast?” 

“Inside the House, probably.” Rose helped her wife catch her breath. The others caught up soon after, and together they went into the house after Jack. The door groaned dryly when opened. Inside, they were greeted with silence, and softly creaking wood. Dust drifted in the air, darkness hung so black it stung. Lifting her wand, Rose whispered something to it and it began to glow, casting steady shadows that moved like they were living. Kanayas skin radiated a soft pale light that joined with Roses wand to ward off the dark. Dave held onto Karkat’s hand and his machete like these things were going to keep him safe and nothing else. Emptiness filled the room. Something scratched the wooden floor in the halls above them, they could hear it in the ceiling. Jades ears flicked to attention, following the sound of claws dragging long and slow on rotting wood above them. She held her breath, steadied her feet into the decaying floor, and slowly rose her gun to aim at the ceiling where the sounds were. Rose gave her a small nod and waited for the gunshot to shatter the silence. 

She pulled the trigger so gently, but the sound was so violent it caused Dave to jump, and above them they could hear Jack howl, letting them know Jade had shot true. In a flash of green Jack was now with them in the dark, sword raised and teeth bared. Where he had gotten this sword, they weren’t sure. Kanaya started up her chainsaw and charged, aiming to cut Jack in half. She would’ve split him, if he hadn’t stabbed her first, causing her to miss and only take off his left arm, which should’ve already been gone. Something was wrong with reality here, in this house. The chainsaw crashed to the floor, and Kanaya was left standing with a sword through her ribs, eyes wide with shock. Rose screamed when Jack yanked the sword back out, letting her fall to the floor without so much as a gasp. A brilliant strike of lightning from Roses wands sent Jack flying back through the walls, and she took the moment to fall to her knees by Kanayas side. 

“Kanaya,” she pulled her into her lap and held her, “look at me, don’t, don’t,” 

Kanaya raised one cold hand to cup Roses cheek, “I’ll be alright, Rose,” she managed a weak smile, “this isn’t the first time I’ve died.”

“I know, but-“ 

Kanaya cut her off with a kiss. “Slay the beast.” She told her. “Go find your mother. I will join you again when the earth has turned to face the sun once more.” 

Rose bit her lip and furrowed her brow, holding Kanayas hand to her cheek and touching her forehead to hers. “You should be more careful.” 

“You should listen to Sollux when he tells you to stay out of trouble.” Kanaya sat up just a bit to brush her nose against Roses neck, before Rose nodded and silently gave her permission to sink her teeth into the skin and draw a sip of blood. When Kanayas lips parted from her neck, she told her, “You know what to do.” Her eyes slipped shut and she went limp. 

Rose cradled her wife close to her chest and swallowed the sorrow. “I need someone to stay with her.” She said to the other three without looking at them. 

“I can.” Karkat stepped forward, letting go of Dave’s hand to kneel by his old friend. “She will be alright, Rose.” He made eye contact with her. “Now go beat mothmans ass.” 

Rose nodded and stood, after having handed Kanaya to Karkat. She took up her wands and began walking to the place where Jack had landed. She walked with the air of a hurricane, her stride was one that could not be stopped or altered, and anything that fell in her path would only know destruction. Stepping through the hole in the wall, she brandished her wands and began to ready another spell. Jade and Dave followed soon after her. The tall grass swayed around her hips, fireflies fled from her march, her eyes settled on Jacks black figure some distance away, hunched and standing slowly while shaking grass out of his feathers. She wound back her arm and aimed with the other, and with a precise flick of her wrist she shot a fine beam of deadly light at him. Another flash of green, and the light was somehow redirected back at her, which she absorbed and wrapped around her fist. Dave readied his machete and went for Jacks legs, but Jack disappeared before him and wound up behind Jade. Twirling around on her heel, Jade moved to smack Jack on the jaw with the butt of her gun, but he vanished once again and left her swinging at the air. Rose shouted and a pulse of light erupted from her wand, a blast of energy that Jack could not dodge, but because it was tuned to do no damage to Dave or Jade, it could not land a critical blow of any sort to Jack. 

The impact of it shook him nonetheless. With a bark of frustration, Jack reappeared in front of Dave and slashed the machete from his hands with the sword, but just before he could stab Dave, Jade moved in front of him, and Jack could not stab her. He snarled. Dave’s hands were bleeding now as he picked up the machete and tried to hold it firmly. Rose stabbed Jack from behind with both her wands, driving them deep into his back and clinging to them to weigh him down. She shouted for them to attack while she had him, but Jack teleported again before they could strike. Reality shifted and all the grass was short suddenly, the fireflies and grasshoppers screamed in unison. Jade turned and punched Jack in the face when he tried to hide behind her again to avoid Rose. Yet another flash of green, and now Jack was lifting Dave into the air by the shirt with his one arm, growling loudly as Dave hacked at him to no avail. Dave tried kicking, stabbing, everything, but Jack was taking it all without flinching and this was, frankly, really fucking scary. Jade went to hit Jack but he made her miss and hit Dave instead. 

Jade apologized, loudly and profusely, for hitting Dave, while Rose tried to cast another spell at Jack. He made her miss and the spell hit Dave instead, and this time he screamed.

“Shit!” Rose backed off and looked for a way to free Dave. 

The wind blew upside-down as lightning bugs blinked in and out of existence. The sky moved backwards, dark clouds hung low and moved like they were set on fastforward. Jack moved his hand to hold Dave up by his neck, and stared Rose and Jade directly in the eyes while Dave fractically attacked his arm and gasped for air. Jade screamed his name and dropped her gun to tackle Jack herself, but Jack teleported away from her, still holding Dave by the neck. The world flickered black for a moment, then flickered again. The soil was breathing and hungry. An apparition of a second ghost-like Jade collected from the dust in the air, she blinked in and out of existence with the lightning bugs and looked physically detached from the real world, as the wind did not move her hair and the grass did not part as she drifted through it. She smiled at Rose and Jade, and smiled with a bit of pity and guilt at Dave. Gently she wrapped her arms around Jack and clutched him tightly. When she dissolved back to dust, she took Jack with her, and together they vanished from this reality without a sound. 

Dave fell to the ground with a gasp, the tall grass rose over his head. The world was still and calm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The inspiration to finish this chapter was brought to you by Hozier’s song “In the Woods Somewhere”


End file.
